Although the Native American art show at the Tucson Museum of Art has been drawing considerable recognition and praise in its second month, an overlooked Tucson staple is about to disappear. El Nacimiento, the labor of love by an otherwise non-artist, will go off display at the end of March so its creator, Maria Luisa Tena, can reconstruct it.

El Nacimiento is by all means an important part of Tucson’s biggest museum, but it is tucked out of the way in the 18th century courtyard, La Casa Cordova, (a short walk away from the main building) and is unknown and unnoticed by much of Tucson’s art crowd.

A religious devotional, El Nacimiento means the "nativity scene" in Spanish. It began three decades ago in 1978 when Tena decided to honor her late mother who had spent her life building a much larger shrine in her hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico. The tradition of building a nativity scene is rich in Guadalajara, but the practice began much earlier thousands of miles away. Beginning as a medieval tradition, the nativity scene dates as far back as the 13th century when Francis of Assisi used live animals to depict the virgin birth three years before he died.

Today in Mexico, the tradition is kept alive every year at Christmas, where locals use figurines and objects they acquire, sometimes over several decades, to create personalized nativity scenes. The shrines range from simple to extravagant, with some even the size of a house and filled with hundreds of hand-picked religious miniatures.

Tena’s nativity scene, removed from the traditional home-base in an otherwise stuffy and formal area, is not considered by many as a work of art comparable to the paintings and sculptures of the museum. But taken together with the Chuck Close and the impressionist works, the piece shows us the more humble (yet still inspirational) manifestations of art.

Make no mistake: the nativity scene is low art. It is not a Picasso, but its everyday beginnings make it all the more powerful.

Although Tena is not an artist, she spent years of her life creating one of the most intricate and skilled devotional pieces this side of the border. At risk of stumbling into cliché; words simply cannot do this piece justice. Even photographs cannot wrap themselves around the overpowering barrage of images this nativity scene purports. The camera can hardly capture the entire thing in one frame, and when it does, the immense number of scenes washes out the personal detail.

No, in order to take it in, you must stand in front of the piece in person, studying each scene individually in careful detail. At first, your eye will probably move to the banner at the top of the exhibit, which mimics medieval banners found at the top of European religious paintings. Angel figurines dance around the long pink sheet, emblazoned with the words “Gloria a Dios en las Alturas Amor y Paz en la Tierra” (“Glory to God in the heights of earth love and peace”). This statement encompasses all of what you are about to take in. From the depiction of the frontier movement with Indian dolls and the Russian buildings made out of construction paper, to Christ himself and the Virgen de Guadalupe; all were created to honor God.

The scene has several levels, separated by plastic leaves and plants, moving up like steps. At the top, you see hand-sized figures and their sheep walking up to a hut with the baby Christ, the noblemen farther back in the line. As you go down, you see a myriad of Old and New Testament scenes, including the devil playing a violin sitting next to an old man drinking alcohol. There are also a number of anachronistic figures, such as a tiny Dalmatian and a Golden Shepherd the size of the humans standing around it. Many of the figures were acquired by Tena’s mother and sisters or were found during Tena’s travels in Mexico.

The scene goes under construction every year as Tena adds to the figures and scenes and changes the lighting effects. The work is an ongoing process, unlike the stagnant paintings that usually get so much attention at the museum. So even if you have already seen it once, you can keep coming again and again.