Campus Life

Just about everywhere you turn when on the Las Cruces campus, you will spot a work of art. Clock of Dreams, a 34-foot clock tower sculpture, stands sentry near the engineering complex. Dualithic World, a fountain and rock structure with an incorporated garden, can be found in front of the chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology complex. The courtyard of Skeen Hall is graced by a set of steel and glass sculptures entitled Ondas del Seno (Sine Waves).

These pieces—each of which is valued at approximately $100,000—and much of the other art found on the campus were made possible through the New Mexico Art in Public Places Act. The legislation, passed in 1986, dictates that one percent of the state capital outlay for a building constructed or renovated with state appropriations (the budget must be $100,000 or more) is to be used for art. There is a $200,000 cap on any one public art project.

Clock of Dreams is the work of Albuquerque artist Evelyn Rosenberg, the winner of the 2007 Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts. Her inspiration?

"Engineering is the science of making dreams come true," Rosenberg explained. One takes an idea and turns it into a reality. The clock is a kinetic sculpture that explores four ideas dealing with the process of invention. The sculpture’s gears start nine feet off the ground so a person can stand underneath the piece and look up to watch it work.

Engineering students helped design the moving mechanisms inside the 34 foot clock tower, which Rosenberg built using her unique method of explosive metal forming she calls detonography. This process allows her to create lightweight, bas-relief sculpture by laying a flat sheet explosive over metal layers which rest upon a mold that she has created.

Dualithic World is from the Santa Fe artist team of Tomas Lipps and Craig Campbell. Lipps is a site specific sculptor who works with natural indigenous stones. He has executed major commissions for the San Francisco Exploratorium Museum and the City of Santa Fe. Campbell is a landscape architect whose work has received numerous awards of merit including a National Endowment for the Arts Design Fellowship for research on water in design and nature. He integrates art and landscape in public art projects.

Artist Ken Leap of Portales created Ondas del Seno (Sine Waves). The sculpture series consists of six 18-foot steel structures with glass panels mounted in each one. Leap is know for his refractive relief sculptures created for for public art projects, galleries, and architecture. He notes that his main goal in sculpture is artistic expression and aesthetics. Leap defines refractive relief sculpture as the bending of light to "paint a picture, with the environment as a palette and cut glass as the brush."

The selection process for art to be placed on NMSU property is simple. University committees chose the new art after reviewing record setting numbers of proposals from across the country. For example, in the case of Clock of Dreams, the engineering committee had to select five finalists from 172 proposals. The models of these finalists were set up for public viewing and opinion.