MESILLA – Mesilla Valley Fine Arts Gallery has had a lot to celebrate. Earlier this month, the galley celebrated its 30th anniversary, making them one of the longest operating co-op galleries in New Mexico. In January, they will ring in two decades at their current location near Mesilla’s historic plaza, at 2470 Calle de Guadalupe.
The gallery is an artist cooperative gallery featuring work from southern New Mexico and west Texas. The artwork in the gallery ranges from acrylic, pastel and watercolor paintings, oil, basketry, drawings, photography, wood turning, gourd art, ceramics, mixed media, stained glass and jewelry.
Additionally, in 2025 MVFA will mark 20 years in a historic adobe building owned by the descendants of Albert Fountain at the south end of Mesilla’s historic plaza. The building houses several businesses today, with the gallery located in a rear adobe wing facing the entrance to the Fountain Theatre.
Yvonne Postelle, a co-op member, has been a part of the gallery since the beginning. She is one of the few remaining original members. The gallery has 30 members and there is a wait list to join.
Postelle began displaying her oil paintings at Sunland Art Gallery at Sunland Mall in El Paso, Texas as well as at Mesilla Valley Fine Arts Gallery when it was located in the Mesilla Valley Mall in Las Cruces. Postelle began her art journey in high school by drawing and was later introduced to oils. After she retire, she went all in with oil painting. She noted that she likes oil as a medium because it’s vibrant and lasts forever, and she said depictions of the area landscape are popular.
“I try to paint the Organ Mountains and the scenes around Las Cruces,” Postelle said. “I have expanded out to Cloudcroft because I like to paint trees.”
Postelle explained that member artists have their artwork on display with rotating locations and also work in the gallery. She tries to have new paintings ready when they rotate quarterly.
“I have a drive to keep painting,” Postelle began. “I feel like I’m not going to live long enough to paint everything. You have to have an inner drive.”
Mesilla Valley Fine Arts Gallery began in the Mesilla Valley Mall with three rooms next to JCPenney. To begin with, the gallery had 26 local artists, including Annette Hoover, Carolyn Bunch, Earline Barnes and Carl Cogar.
After 24 years, she said the gallery was incorporated as a nonprofit organization, under the name Mesilla Valley Fine Arts, in 1994. In 2003, the gallery left the mall and moved to Mesilla, settling into their current home in the Fountain building in 2005.
Kerry O’Neill, an artist who heads the gallery’s marketing committee, has deep roots at the gallery. Long before she became a member in 2018, her family would often visit the gallery at the mall and purchase art. O’Neill recalled playing a game in which artists replicated works by a famous artist or they did an original piece inspired by that artist. Visitors would guess who the artist was. One year, O’Neill and her mother won a gift certificate. The “My Masterpiece” challenge remains a recurring gallery event.
O’Neill is a retired elementary art teacher who lived in Gallup before moving to Las Cruces 11 years ago. While teaching middle school art, she was required to teach her students ceramics.
“I knew zero about it, so I had to be self-taught,” O’Neill explained. “Just before I Ieft Gallup, I met someone who taught me how to throw on the wheel. When I moved up here, I took many classes from the museum and got better and better at it. I then created my own little home studio.”
O’Neill, along with Ray Baird, was a November artist of the month. She said she draws inspiration from the folk art of Europe and Mexico. She also has a series of plant-based impressions at the Branigan Cultural Center as part of an exhibit named “The Dinner Party: Multicultural Crossroads in Clay.”
In discussions with Art Fountain, O’Neill said she learned the building originally was a Mexican customs house with a hostelry. Down the street heading south, there is an empty lot that once used the corral.
In 1854, after the Gadsden Purchase, the town of Mesilla became part of the United States. Since it was on a trade route, the building became part of the transportation block.
“The entire building complex had turned into a mail center. It was part of the Butterfield Overland Mail, San Antonio Mail and the Wells Fargo Express. It was part of the El Camino Real,” O’Neill said.
Historically a transportation hub, today the gallery says some two-thirds of its visitors are from El Paso, from other states and around the world. O’Neill said her ceramics have gone to England, Scotland, Ukraine, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Columbia, Mexico and Canada.
More information is available via MesillaValleyFineArts.com, 575-522-2933 or info@mesillavalleyfinearts.com.
