I am neither an artist nor an art aficionado. However, I am a Spanish-language learner, and when I checked out the bilingual children’s book El Reyezuelo y La Cholla (The Cactus Wren and the Cholla) from Branigan Library in Las Cruces, I did so in no small part because I was captivated by the illustrations. When I looked to see who the artist was, I was intrigued to find it was a Silver City native: Manuel Fred Barraza.
Barraza’s low-key demeanor belies his stature as a prolific artist talented in many mediums, an illustrator of books for children and adults, a respected art teacher, and one of the state’s cultural and artistic decision-makers. What he laughingly calls “artist attention deficit disorder” has taken him down many fulfilling paths and allowed him to use his skills in many ways: creating, teaching, managing, and advocating.
Barraza’s early childhood artistic efforts weren’t particularly auspicious. Instructed to draw angels during catechism, he complained to his father that he didn’t know how. He says his father “just put a pencil in my hand, and told me to go from there. When I was done, he said, ‘That’s a lousy angel, but keep going.’ And I did.” Throughout his childhood his skills grew exponentially, and he expanded to oils and airbrush work when he was in high school.
Four years in the United States Marine Corps took Barraza to Okinawa, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, and his work is still occasionally influenced by Asian art. When the mountains of the Gila called him home, he enrolled at Western New Mexico University (WNMU), “wanting to learn everything.” Barraza says others “suggested” that he should concentrate on one medium; but then, like now, he wanted to do it all, and his efforts included printmaking, sculpture, drawing, and painting.
He graduated in 1983 and found his “starving-artist day job” with the New Mexico State Library Rural Bookmobile Southwest, providing library services across a six-county region of southwest New Mexico. He started drawing people while working at the bookmobile.
“Every quarter I would draw one of our patrons and put it on the cover of the bookmobile schedule,” he said. “At one point I even exhibited these drawings.”
In 2008, he retired as director of Rural Bookmobile Southwest, and went on to teach drawing, art appreciation, and printmaking at WNMU for more than five years.
Although he didn’t know it in 1983, the Bookmobile would be Barraza’s gateway to important roles in the state’s art and culture communities 25 years later. The Bookmobile system is part of the New Mexico State Library, which is part of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA). Early on, he volunteered as a panelist with DCA’s New Mexico Arts Commission (NMAC) reviewing grant applications from arts councils and organizations across the state for projects including the Arts and the Military Initiative, Art and Cultural Districts, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, and applications from 501(c)(3) organizations for arts activities, lectures, and performances.
Over the years, Barraza’s reputation as an artist grew, as did his reputation for advocacy for the culture and arts communities throughout New Mexico and understanding of the always-important management of resources.
In 2015, then-Governor Susana Martinez appointed Barraza to serve as a commissioner on the New Mexico Arts Commission, which he did until 2021 when he was recommended for the Museum of New Mexico Board of Regents, and he continues to serve as a regent today.
To learn more about Barraza and his artwork, follow him on Instagram @nmsw_artist, or visit his website at barrazafinearts.com. Learn more about the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs at nmculture.org.
