On Saturday August 26, 2017 from 2:00 pm to 4:30 pm, the Murals of Las Cruces Project will host a “launch party” for their new website at the New Mexico State University Art Gallery. The event is free and open to the public.
The afternoon will begin with a panel discussion titled “Street Art: A Public Conversation,” and will be followed by an after party with refreshments in celebration of the launch of muralsoflascruces.com.
The Murals of Las Cruces Project is a community-based endeavor that brings artists, scholars, and the public together to document and digitally preserve murals in the greater Las Cruces area. Since May of 2015, members of the group have recorded over 200 murals in the area and generated community discussions through their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/muralsoflascruces. The group has also produced tour guides for the Mesquite, Alameda, and Downtown areas.
Project members believe that the murals of Las Cruces have a multitude of stories to tell about the place we live in, and the group seeks to create conversations with the local community.
The website will include murals past and present from all of the neighborhoods in Las Cruces, as well as other information such as the names of artists, dates of production, and locations.
The NMSU Art Gallery is located in D.W. Williams Hall, near the intersection of University and Solano Avenues. Parking on campus is free on the weekends.
Panelists
Nathan Japel
Nathan Japel is an artist who lives in Las Cruces, NM. He received a BFA from Iowa State University and a MFA from SUNY Stony Brook. Nathan has exhibited his work in several states.
Anahy Nunez
Anahy Nunez is a multimedia artist born and raised in Las Cruces, NM. She has taught herself how to create art through various mediums ranging from oil and acrylic works to body painting. She is mostly known for her Southwestern themed artwork that is heavily influenced by her surroundings. Constantly manifesting her dreams into existence.
Jerry Wallace
Jerry D. Wallace is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New Mexico focusing on environmental history and historic preservation - specifically on human-animal relationships and the built environment in the twentieth century. His dissertation examines neighborhood identities in the early Cold War era in which he explores how class, gender, animals, age and the translocal have shaped built communities in the American West, Southwest, and the borderlands. He currently teaches at New Mexico State University.
Joy Miller
Joy Miller has an MFA from Kent State University. She has worked in the exhibition field for over 25 years, being the Curator of Museum of Art since 2000. She lives in Mesilla and has a fondness for the landscape and for the history of art in New Mexico.
Shauna Foster and Lorenzo Zepeda
Shaunna Foster works for the City of Las Cruces as a Recreation Services Leader Sr. She started the City Mural Program as a week long spring break Aerosol Art Camp behind Meerscheidt recreation center with Chris Bardey in 2014. She and Chris also ran the West End Art Depot for four years before closing it in May of 2016. After the original Spring Break Art Program, Shaunna and Lorenzo Zepeda began another mural project working with youth during Christmas Break 2015. Since then, Shaunna and Lorenzo have created Murals at Loma Heights Elementary, A. Fielder Memorial Safe Haven, Sonoma Ranch Archery Range, Laab's Pool and the ongoing multi-panel Teen Mural Project behind Lion's Park Tennis Courts.
Meg G. Freyermuth
Meg G. Freyermuth is an artist from Las Cruces, New Mexico. Freyermuth has been painting since 2003, and received her BFA in Painting & Drawing from New Mexico State University in 2009. As an avid hiker, traveler, and gardener since childhood, Freyermuth draws on these experiences to depict her passion for the environment through brightly colored, dramatic paintings of the wilderness and wildlife of the United States. Freyermuth has shown her work all over the Southwest, and is a passionate community volunteer and spokesperson for the environment. In September 2015, she was the first Artist-In-Residence for the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, a program which supports public lands through art. She works to highlight the importance of environmental conservation, historical preservation, and access to art in the modern age.
SABA
Building forts out of sage brush, hauling water and attending boarding school in the mid 80’s. SABA a descendant of both Dine’ & Walatowa people from the 4 corners of the world found in Northern New Mexico.
Like a lot of Indian/Native/Indigenous people living on and off of the reservation, SABA has endured a great amount of confusion to why his traditional way of life and identity is getting harder and harder to find. Unknowing of the historical trauma that lay underneath piles of priceless hand woven rugs. SABA receives the message of his and herstories thru Arrowsoul fumes in current day petroglyphs. While working in various communities and building with tribal kin, Saba finds he is one of many indigenous refugees diggin his way back to the roots through Hip Hop/Indigenous Expression. Bridging the gap from old to new, Hoping to relay the message to the younger generations that the first peoples are ALIVE and Continuing to rise out of this colonial coloring book. Remembering that we have always painted walls, banged beats, rocked the earth and shared stories with our families that stretch from Canada to South America.
Craig Cully
Craig Cully is an artist whose subjects are rendered with intimate care and attention to their unique beauty while communicating an underlying content that resonates with the audience . Having grown up in the suburbs of Philadelphia some of his earliest influences come from the area’s long-standing tradition of realist painters. Cully’s work has been featured in gallery and museum exhibitions throughout the United States and is part of the permanent collection of The Boise Museum of Art, The Tucson Museum of Art, The University of Arizona Museum of Art, the University of Sciences and Arts of Oklahoma, and the Museum of Art at Texas Tech University. Currently he is represented by the Etherton Gallery in Tucson, AZ, the Stephanie Breitbard Gallery in San Francisco, CA, the Stewart Gallery in Boise, ID, Gallerie, and the Projects Gallery in Philadelphia, PA. Being committed to the power of the visual image, and the desire for art-making to be embraced and respected, Cully also teaches. He is an Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing at New Mexico State University. Cully divides his time throughout the year living and working along side his wife Kelly and their two basset hounds Bertha and Gertrude in both New Mexico and Arizona.
Moderators
Peter Kopp
Peter Kopp is Associate Professor of History and the Director of Public History at New Mexico State University. He is the author of Hoptopia: A World of Agriculture and Beer in Oregon's Willamette Valley.
Norma Hartell
Raised in Las Cruces, Norma has been fascinated with learning about all the different ways in which history and culture could be expressed. Her interests grew through her studies. In 2010, Norma Hartell graduated from NMSU with Bachelors of Fine Arts and graduated with an MA in Anthropology in 2016 where she focused on highlighting the visual arts and artists of Southern New Mexico. In 2014, she began working on the Chope’s Town Café and Bar historic preservation nomination in a Cultural Resource Management course taught by Dr. Beth O’Leary. On May 26, 2015, the property was successfully listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 2015 Norma and a colleague began working on the Murals of Las Cruces project as a Public History class assignment taught by Dr. Peter Kopp. The project continues to evolve and grow till this day. Aside from working on the Mural of Las Cruces project Norma Hartell is a City of Las Cruces Museum Curator and a Hispanic Access Foundation-Latino Heritage Scholar.
Information from: The Murals of Las Cruces Project.
For event information please contact Norma Hartell at 575.650.5690.