Over the past seven months, Las Cruces-based artist Kathy Morrow has been hard at work every morning building a significant rock mural displayed in front of New Mexico State University's Golf Course.
According to a news release from the university, Morrow drew inspiration for the mural from Southwest and Native American art.
“My art is Southwest and Native American inspired,” she said as the mural depicts the natural beauty of the area and the native wildlife.
“I grew up on Indian reservations, so there’s an influence there,” said Morrow.
Morrow had previously garnered recognition with a colored rock mural on the Tortugas dam that she worked on for over five years. However, with the dam use expected to be altered, she had to move her mural.
“The community had started joining in, the walkers on the dam. They’d ask what color rock I needed, and I’d say I was looking for yellows,” she said. “Pretty soon there would be big piles, backpacks, bags, and then eventually – pickup trucks full of yellows. Whatever the color was.”
Morrow added that Elephant Butte Irrigation District, which is the owner of the dam, saw her work and said her mural was “beautiful.”
“However, eventually they told me that they were going to reconfigure the dam and a big bulldozer was going to be coming through and all of that artwork was going to have to go,” she said.
In November of last year, she said she began working on the mural near the golf course as a bulldozer smoothed out an area for her to display her mural.
“The difference between here and the dam is that the images have to be stretched and deformed for you to see it correctly. It must be wrong on the hill,” said Morrow. "The reason is the pitch of this hill; that’s why the animals are stretched and elongated. The view from the top is very deformed and distorted, and the view from the door at the NMSU Golf Course clubhouse is what it’s supposed to look like.”
She added that the mural will be protected from weeds and maintained with a pre-emergence spray and security.
“The other big advantage is, you had to be a hiker if you wanted to see it on the dam,” she said. “So, if you’re in a wheelchair or a walker, it was very difficult to get a person up there to see. Now, people can drive right here, and they can see it from their cars if they want.”
The mural is located on a half-acre site and Morrow acknowledged that she worked on a lot of the mural herself, but had received help that sped up the project.