By Stephany Trego

LAS CRUCES, NM – June 11, 2008 When Mesilla artist Jeanne Rundell walked along the Antique Equipment Park at the Las Cruces Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, she saw more than old, rusted farm implements. She saw what she refers to as “dinosaur bones” from the industrial revolution, and decided to bring them to life in the form of colorful, modern-style paintings.

“Relics of the Industrial Revolution: The Art of Jeanne Rundell” features 18 large paintings and will be in the museum’s south corridor through Nov. 16.

Rundell worked on the project for the past two years. After she took more than 200 photographs of the equipment, she chose parts and pieces from the machinery for the interpretations seen in the exhibit.

“They spoke eloquently about the disappearance of farming as a way of life,” she said of the implements. “Their structures and forms were beautiful.”

Rundell has been interested in art since childhood. She attended Cornell University, and received her B.F.A. from the University of Colorado. Later, she earned an M.A. in clay and glassblowing at Emporia University in Kansas. She has also studied drawing at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, and apprenticed in pottery with Margarete Wiedemann in Regensburg, Germany.

In 1975, she and her family moved to Las Cruces where she founded Mesilla Valley Pottery and began a thirty-year stint showing her art at fairs across the U.S. Rundell recently has had paintings accepted into two nationally juried art shows, at both the Prince Street Gallery in New York City and at the Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, Conn. Since 1986, her studio has been located at The Potteries in Mesilla and she continues to work there daily.

The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and from 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, please call (575) 522-4100.

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