Noted Las Cruces artist Anthony Pennock is teaming with a group of New Mexico State University students to create a mural for the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum’s Main Gallery.

Known mainly for his water tank murals in the city, Pennock created scenes for the museum’s mural that focus on early Native American agriculture in New Mexico. A theater set design class from New Mexico State University will paint Pennock’s design.

The mural, which is 69 feet long and 10 feet tall, includes five vignettes depicting people of the Mogollon, Mimbres and Ancestral Puebloan Indian cultures planting corn, cultivating and irrigating crops, processing food and ending with a scene showing the arrival of the first Spanish colonists.

The students will begin painting the mural on Oct. 3 and the project is expected to take at least a month.

The mural is part of a new look in the Main Gallery. Located in the museum’s Bruce King Building, the 15,200-square-foot gallery is undergoing dramatic changes that feature colorful new exhibits along with the mural. The exhibits will allow visitors who come to the museum this winter to become immersed in a historical environment.

The winding mural brings visitors around a re-created Mogollon pit house and takes them to a new four-part exhibit called Farm Life in New Mexico: Then & Now. The four components include Home Sweet Home, Moving Around, On the Farm, and Going to Town.

Home Sweet Home is a colorful, nostalgic “slice of life” that includes a cozy, two-room floor plan featuring a kitchen and parlor created to look like the inside of a New Mexico home, circa 1920-30. A walkway between the rooms gets visitors close to the objects and provides the feeling of actually walking through the home.

“Moving Around” focuses on transportation in rural New Mexico and includes a façade of a railroad depot, complete with railroad artifacts, and several wagons and carriages. “On the Farm” features a tool shed and various farm implements, while “Going to Town” focuses on community life and includes a mercantile and a post office display.

The museum is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for senior citizens and $2 for children ages 5 to 17.

For more information contact, Craig Massey at 505-522-4100 ext. 101.

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