Same Old Story Mural on Santa Fe County building inspires conversation on public art

SANTA FE REPORTER - The mural started to take shape in mid-November, swirling across the face of the Santa Fe County Human Resources building on West Alameda Street. It’s a scene depicting Spanish colonial New Mexico, with figures tilling soil and chopping wood beside a sweeping Southwestern vista. Looming large over the pastoral tableau, a man on horseback points a sword at a seated figure on the ground before him. The character holds a cross in one hand.

Not long after the public art project began, local artist Chris McLean contacted his friend Nina Elder. “He called me on the phone and said, ‘I live really close to this mural that’s going up. I find it deeply offensive, and I don’t know what to do,’” said Elder. Elder, an Albuquerque artist, is currently enjoying a residency in Oregon, but her previous work in Santa Fe as an activist and arts organizer helped guide her next steps. “I said, ‘Well, I think getting the public involved would be the best way to go,’” she says. “We knew that as a couple of white people, it might not be our place to cry out against it. My goal was to get our Native friends involved and get their voices in the front of the conversation.”

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