Beautifying Valley View Park in Los Lunas with butterflies

LOS LUNAS—The electrical meter box was rusted and ugly and didn’t seem to belong in the otherwise well-cared-for Valley View Park in Los Lunas.

Lybi Winzenz kept passing it as she walked her dog every day. Somebody should do something about it — and hadn’t she been looking for a beautification project?

“I thought, ‘It’s so ugly and it could be so pretty,’” Winzenz recalled.

She’d been asked to head an arts session as a means of “Blessing Our Community With Our Talents” during a women’s conference for the Los Lunas stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints.

She thought about it for a few months and then, seeing a trio of village employees working at the park, “I had a wave of bravery, and I asked them if they thought it would be possible.”

They thought it would be and referred her to the parks department, and she got approval.

“I was so impressed about how open they were to giving permission,” said Winzenz’s mother, Jackie Farnsworth, who helped with the background of the mural.

Jason Duran, village parks and recreation director, said the work fits right in with the village’s plans for public art — a couple of little library boxes are already decorated and he’s working on plans for a children’s contest to help add art to the recreation center.

“We haven’t done as much as we’d like to with public art but we’d love to partner with them anytime, especially local artists,” Duran said, adding that the village is planning on putting funding for public art in its upcoming budget.

Winzenz thought immediately of her friend, Laura Wegkamp Cook, and her daughter, Kelsey, who were both known for their artistic talents. They liked the idea, too, and said they’d help.

Butterflies — what could be more cheerful, natural and beautiful than that for their painting? Winzenz and Wegkamp Cook — a designer of note — began researching which butterflies are native to New Mexico and they chose the most colorful: anise swallowtails in yellow, red-spotted purple in (strangely) blue and a viceroy in orange.

Wegkamp Cook designed a wrap-around mural with some large, some smaller butterflies set against a bright blue sky of the sort for which the state is famous.

“I designed it with scoops and patterns,” she said, making it look as if a kaleidoscope of butterflies was erupting against the block wall behind the electrical box.

“In the principles of design, I focus on big, medium and smaller (butterflies) — an alignment, a movement, a harmonizing color palette,” Wegkamp Cook said.

Her paintings — often portraits and landscapes — have been featured in galleries in New Mexico and Utah. One painting of sandhill cranes has been featured on the cover of an art magazine. The birds — a common sight in the county — would be the perfect subject of a larger mural, they all agreed.

They had to wait for non-windy days and times when the temperature was above freezing so that the paint would dry smoothly without flecks of dust in it; the work began in October. It also took time for each of the coats of paint to dry.

Village workers had told her about a rust-covering primer that would allow their painting to be smooth and not flake off.

After priming the box, they began on the sky. To look realistic, they applied lighter and darker shades of blue along with white for the butterfly background.

“The sky isn’t just one color — to an artist, that is,” Farnsworth explained.

It took five days just to apply the exterior latex paint sky on the box.

“I was excited to try — it was the first mural I’d painted, said Cook.

The home-schooled 15-year-old enjoys all sorts of art projects from graphic cartoon-style elements to designing video games.

“I thought it would be fun.”

The box has been gaining attention.

“A couple at church said they’d seen it when out walking and they wondered who’d done it,” Farnsworth said. “She and her husband had actually been talking about it.”

While they worked, people walking their dogs would praise and encourage them as they passed, making their Butterfly Project that much more fun.

To top it all off, after completion, they were surprised to see that the box had become a stop in the Pokeman on-line game.

“We play Pokeman and photos of the project have been sent to Australia, France, England — all over the world,” Farnsworth said.

And it also encouraged the youngest artist to continue thinking in terms of public art.

“I liked seeing how big Kelsey’s smile was. She said, ‘Mom, I want to paint the world,’” Winzenz recalled.

They all hope the brightly-colored butterfly box on the east side of the park is just the start of a blossoming of public art in Los Lunas. Winzenz says she has rust-covering primer and some paint left over and hopes people will nominate places they’d like to see painted with murals, with the permission of the village. To nominate a place to beautify, text to 480-695-0024.

“I want to paint more murals,” Cook said. “I see a mural and I say, ‘Yay!’ I want to see more murals; I want to see more art.”

And Winzenz has her eye on the back of the large sign that displays the name of the park.

“I’m thinking a mural of hot-air balloons would look good there,” she said.

Duran says the sign is due to be replaced — “and now that that’s coming up, this would give us a chance to do something. This would be a great opportunity to partner with them and do something.”