Cruces Creatives goes big in support of county celebration

In anticipation of the 2025 Dia de los Muertos celebration, Dona Ana County turned to the creative talents of a team of artists affiliated with Cruces Creatives in Las Cruces. After attending a workshop hosted by Eileen Condon, who specializes in sculptures created using cardboard, DAC creative industries artistic director Irene Oliver Lewis commissioned Condon’s crew for an eight-foot artistic replica of Ana Gomez Robledo (1604-1680), the namesake of Dona Ana County.

“There really was a person, Dona Ana, that goes back to the Pueblo revolt,” Lewis said. “There are no pictures of her, so we took my grandmother Juanita's picture from like 1860 and used that for the face for Dona Ana.”

Working under the direction of DAC economic development director Denisse Carter, Lewis contacted Cruces Creatives and asked Condon to take on the project.  

“I've done lots of projects with them and I trust them implicitly with their art,” Lewis said. “We took them the picture, we met with them, we looked at what would work, the materials, all that sort of stuff, and then they did this wonderful replica that's going to be the centerpiece of the counties Dia de los Muertos altar.”

Juanita was chosen as the model for Dona Ana because she is also part of a pioneer family from this region, growing up in the Mesquite Historic District. Lewis is very pleased with the way the sculpture turned out

“It was better that I expected,” she said. “When you think about eight feet, you don't think about how big eight feet is and so it's better. The county building has a lot of space so it will probably be dwarfed in there.”

Condon did the work on the sculpture, while John Alvarez provided the clothing for the Dona Ana statue. The piece is somewhat unique in its use of cardboard. Condon loves working with recycled material in her art and she embraced this opportunity that came along after Lewis attended one of her cardboard sculpture classes at Cruces Creatives.

“She asked me to create this sculpture, and I thought it was really interesting,” Condon said. “I like working big and I haven't gotten to work that big before. I am a sustainable artist. I like to reuse things that are thrown out, so cardboard is one of the big mediums that I work with. That’s mostly what I use for the sculpture.

Condon also incorporated some spray foam and wire to build a big, strong, lightweight sculpture out of those materials. There is a paper mache component as that was part of Lewis’s expectation. Then, there was the movable aspect to the creation.

“She wanted a very large eight-foot marionette,” Condon said. “Some of the parts are movable, the arms are movable. She doesn't really have legs, that's her secret. The movable parts of the joint are actually connected with wire so they're able to dangle.”

From a sketch Condon made, Alvarez created all of the clothing for the sculpture, giving it a look that fits the era it represents. While the sculpture itself is almost entirely cardboard, the clothing is made from fabric.

Condon went to school at the University of New Orleans. It was there that her love of working with unique mediums like cardboard was born.

“We did a lot of work with different mediums and we definitely delved into finding our own kind of materials and making something out of it,” Condon said. “I don't find a lot of people doing it out here. When I started teaching classes out here, I did notice that there is a little bit of interest but maybe people hadn't put their hands on it. I think that traditional art is focused towards fine art and people don't usually consider trash a good medium to work with.

“I like it because it's cheap. I like the fact that you don't have to buy anything most of the time. You can build a lot and you do need glue and paint and stuff like that, but it's a pretty cheap way to make some larger art pieces. I like the way it looks. I like the way you can kind of give yourself a challenge.”

Working with cardboard isn’t always easy, Condon said, but she enjoys molding it. Sometimes she must wet it and cut it a bit. The artist likens it to origami, with cardboard as the paper.

Dona Ana County’s 2025 Dia de los Muertos celebration featuring the eight-foot statue began Nov. 5 and continues through Wednesday, Nov. 12.

A community altar/ofrenda was created on the first floor including the statue as well as mini altars/ofrendas created by county staff and elected officials.

The Dia de los muertos cultural celebration is a beloved and traditional event in Mexico and dates to the time of the Aztecs, 3,000 years ago, who believed that death is a progression of life and should be honored and celebrated rather than mourned.

The celebrations traditionally take place in a cemetery where family members clean and decorate the deceased grave and celebrate with food, music, stories; in community altars like the one created for DAC; and in private homes.

The celebration has become an event in many cities throughout the United States. La Mesilla’s celebration started in 1996 and has become one of the largest celebrations in the state. Currently the cities of Las Cruces, El Paso, and Deming all have yearly events.

The Dona Ana County public celebration is scheduled for Nov. 17, from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. at the county building.