D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
May 2008
M. Fred Barraza
Page: 2The abstract fish, in "Aguantar," is a rosy peach. It is comically tossed around in blue-green waves, under a golden sky. Spanish for "endure," aguantar, Barraza explains, describes the fish's tenacious nature. "He's a tough guy. He's hanging in there," he says with a laugh.
The other fish is more representational: a large-mouthed bass bursting up through the water's surface to try to catch a dragonfly. This print has a rich combination of blues and greens, and glimmers with a backlighting of golden-yellow and touches of red — the result of a multiple-pass block printing process, Barraza explains.
Back down a hall, he points out more lino-cut and etching prints. "This was for Weekend at the Galleries one year," he says of one black-and-white lino-cut print. "They (the Mimbres Region Arts Council) used it for their poster."
He's done quite a bit of work for the arts council, including three of its youth-mural projects: the "Salt of the Earth" mural in Bayard, the whiptail lizard on the Morning Star building at College and Bullard Streets in downtown Silver City, and a mural at the Viola Stone Park in Santa Clara.
Over the years, Barraza has done many prints and posters for organizations and special events, including "Wilderness Benefits Us All!" for the forest service, the commemorative print for the arts council's annual Blues Festival (see this issue's "40 Days and 40 Nights" section) and a poster for Silver City's Day of the Dead event.
Barraza gestures toward a humorous print, an image titled "Tales of the Bloated Goat." "That was for one of Dutch Salmon's books," he says, adding with a laugh, "It's pretty crazy." Barraza has produced cover art and inside illustrations for local author Salmon's books, as well as the illustrations for a colorful bilingual children's book, The Cactus Wren and the Cholla, by Valerie Chellew Garcia. Barraza speaks fondly of that project, and says he has plans for a children's book of his own.
Not surprisingly, Barraza has also created several posters for reading and literacy events over the years, a blending of his art and that colorful "day job" driving the bookmobile.
"I just needed a job when I got out of college, and a job with the bookmobile was open," Barraza recalls. "When I first started, I was a little skeptical. I wasn't all that social at that age. They must have thought I was doing a good job, though, because after three years, they made me the manager of the program."
Though he might have started out with little more than a road map and instructions — driving his 35-foot vehicle chockfull of some 3,500 books — Barraza says he must have gotten a smile on his face and developed some social graces pretty quickly as his patrons warmed to him.
"Oh, people bring me cookies. They look forward to seeing me. It's just been a wonderful experience," he says.
Though he says he's ready to retire after 25 years, he acknowledges some reluctance at leaving the post.
"Well, there are budget things," he says with a sad smile. "They are not going to replace my position as manager, so whereas I had a staff of two, now those two people will be the whole program. It was hard enough to get it all done with the three of us. I can't imagine it with just two."
He adds that the Silver City office will close after he leaves, and that he's been told several stops will be eliminated from the drivers' routes.
"I can't imagine what those poor folks are going to do," he says of the remote towns that have no library and will soon lose their bookmobile service.
Barraza reflects on his 25 years of visiting remote rural communities spread across six counties. New Mexico's mobile library program is unusual, he says, in that it covers the entire state. Most mobile library programs are only town and regional, he notes.
Some routes took only one day to cover, Barraza explains. Glenwood, for example, is only the stop in Catron County. But Otera County is a three-day run, with stops in eight towns along the way.
"We pull up to the post office or by a store or a community center, some public meeting place in that town," he says. "And we'd stay for an hour and a half up to three hours, depending."
Barraza and his wide-roaming bookmobile route recently caught the attention of the nationwide newspaper-supplement American Profile. The magazine featured Barraza as part of its ongoing celebration of rural life.
He acknowledges that it's been a uniquely fun way to make a living. And his connections over many years with the people along his route have made it a job with something more, the evidence of which is spread before him in the form of poignant pencil drawings, framed portraits propped up against the living room wall. These are just a few of the faces of the many people he's served over the years. These works were the subject of an exhibit at the Silver City Museum a few years back, Barraza says.
He points out a drawing of a woman reading to a small child, a baby toddling around by her feet. "She's a beautiful person," he says, smiling. "She homeschools her children and she got books from me every month. Her little boy liked to draw, and he knew I did, too, so he brought me some of his drawings."
Barraza remembers another family, regular patrons. The children in that family liked art, too, he says, and he made them drawing pads for Christmas gifts.
Another patron, a man, was also an artist. "He developed Parkinson's disease, and it got to the point where he couldn't do his art and he started giving me his tools and supplies," Barraza recalls. "It was sad, but so precious that he wanted to give them to me, another artist."
He indicates another framed portrait, propped up against the wall. "That's Meg. She was in this electric wheelchair. We had an access issue; she couldn't get it up on the bookmobile. So I asked her, 'What kinds of books do you like?' and then I'd go looking through what I had for stuff like that.
"It turned into me pulling out whole armloads of books, shoving them out the door and asking if she saw anything she wanted. Then I'd go get another armload." He pauses to remember, a smile on his face.
"Then one day we found a way to get her on. We got her and her chair up on the bus and she was able to roll around a bit and see all that we had. Afterward she said, OK, you can just throw me off of here now and I can die happy.' It was something else, I'll tell you. What a moment."
He looks again at the portrait of Meg, seated in her motorized wheelchair, hugging a huge stack of books to her chest. He smiles and says, "Yeah, moments like that are the ones I'll just never forget."
An exhibit of M. Fred Barraza's work opens June 14 at the JW Art Gallery, 99 Cortez Ave., in Hurley, 537-0330, with an opening reception 2-6 p.m. For more on the artist and his work, see www.barrazaart.com, call 388-5620, or write PO Box 611, Silver City, NM 88062.