The GCAS proudly donated funds to the Southwest New Mexico Audubon Society in partnership with the Mimbres Region Arts Council Youth Mural Program, to support their latest civic educational and beautification project. The mural was dedicated to the public on October 26, 2019. As the Southwest New Mexico Audubon Society describes,
The mural theme, “Plants, Pollinators and Climate Change,” was proposed by SWNM Audubon and designed by Aldo Leopold High School art students, under the direction of teacher Alison Phillips, with input from supporting organizations and based on original photographs by Elroy Limmer. Mimbreño designs bridge past with present, the border consists of blue to red stripes depicting global temperature changes over the last 100 years.
The new mural illustrates the bees, birds, butterflies, and bats who pollinate the plants on which animal and human lives depend. One of the speakers at the mural’s dedication, the GCAS’s own Marilyn Markel (photo on right by C.Overlock; all other photos by M.Smith), explained that the black-and-white Mimbreño designs in the mural represented the Native culture that thrived in our region before climate change some 900 years ago caused drought and crop failure that forced Mimbreños to migrate elsewhere as early 12th-Century climate refugees.
Thanks go to all the other organizations and individuals who supported this magnificent art project: the Mimbres Region Arts Council Youth Mural Program, the Southwest New Mexico Audubon Society, the National Audubon’s Coleman and Susan Burke Foundation Plants for Birds, the Silver City Town and Country Garden Club, the Gila Native Plant Society, Linda Gerritson, the Youth Conservation Corps, Comcast, the Linberry Foundation, and the Grant County Beekeepers.
The new mural is located in Silver City on the east-facing side of the Silver City Trading Company, at the southwest corner of Texas and Broadway Streets. Please stroll by and see it for yourself!