Statue of limitations? In Las Cruces, aging public art set to be destroyed

LAS CRUCES — For decades, a hand-carved statue depicting an eagle standing 6 feet high has held its place near a bus stop on Missouri Avenue.

The artist’s name is believed to be Richard Gonzalez, but little is known about him or the Missouri Avenue eagle. City officials believe it may have been part of the Missouri/Boutz street realignment project, which included the installation of roadside art, in 1994.

Carved from the trunk of a tree, today the eagle shows signs of rot. Its beak and talons are broken and the structure wobbles to the touch. Moreover, the city’s public art board says contact information for the artist has been lost along with the eagle’s history.

On Monday, the city’s public art coordinator, Ceci Vasconcellos, told city councilors and Mayor Eric Enriquez the time has come to dispose of the eagle. “The condition is extremely poor,” she said. “It cannot be repaired or restored.”

Instead, it will be removed and destroyed, she said.

For the first time since its inception in 2013, the City Art Board came to council chambers this week seeking the removal of two works from the city’s public art collection owing to their deterioration.

The other work soon to disappear is a familiar downtown landmark: A mural painted by Sebastian “Vela” Velazquez in 2014 on the western wall of the historic Rio Grande Theatre. The mural honors the theater’s construction in 1926 as a cinema, with nods to Charlie Chaplin, “Star Wars” and other figures from movie history. It also depicts Las Cruces musician and composer Randy Granger playing a flute.

Despite its exposure to blazing sun, winds and dust, Vasconcellos said the mural had somehow held up beyond the five years it was expected to last. However, the damage is impossible to miss: The colors have faded and paint has flaked away throughout the piece, disfiguring Chaplin and obscuring the composition.

As part of upcoming renovations at the theater, the entire building is set to be repainted, with no immediate plans for a replacement mural.

Velazquez said the theater piece was one of his early municipal art projects, and he fondly recalled working alongside students from the Court Youth Center, an arts-based after-school facility that was led by Irene Oliver Lewis, who commissioned the work.

“While I am saddened to see the mural transition into a new phase, I am reminded of the positive impact it has had over the years, inspiring many in our community,” he said. He also expressed interest in developing a new project for the site if the opportunity arose.

“There is a lifespan of certain art projects, and of public art,” Oliver Lewis said in an interview. “Some things are ongoing or last forever, like sculptures. It depends on the material. This one, the material didn’t last.”

She said refurbishing the mural to maintain it in perpetuity was never in the plans, as the mural looks over a city undergoing rapid growth and transformation. It was important, she said, that the city had contacted the artist about its plans and received his blessing.

With the eagle and its unknown artist, that was not an option. Vasconcellos said that, to her knowledge, no maintenance or repairs of any kind had been performed on the statue.

By contrast, “Trail of the Whispering Giants” is a massive wood sculpture by Peter Wolf Toth installed in Apodaca Park in 1986. Depicting the head of a Diné man, the artwork undergoes regular upkeep by city staff, including weatherproofing, Vasconcellos said.

“We’ll provide that maintenance unless it’s something more intensive,” she said, alluding to details of patterns, color schemes or other details requiring the artist’s attention if they are available. “We make an effort to consult them first or give them the option of doing that work.”

That does not necessarily apply to murals, however, some of which she said have an expected service life of five to seven years based on their locations and exposure to elements and potential vandalism, while other large works, such as the city’s well-known water tank murals, have more protections under the public art master plan.

Oliver Lewis has also been involved in public art projects within the city’s historic Mesquite district, where she grew up and resides today, and through those efforts she discovered a more durable medium in tile murals, which also allow for direct local participation.

“That’s public art,” she said, “but it’s public art in community, organizing with a vision of what we want to do with our neighborhood.”