Photograph by NMTD.

 

Big Bird, Las Cruces  

Forget speedy cartoon roadrunners. Artist Olin Calk’s 20-foot-tall, one-ton Big Bird sculpture, west of Las Cruces off I-10, is made entirely of tossed sneakers, dead cell phones, crutches, bike tires, and other landfill castoffs. “The message of reduce, reuse, recycle continues to resonate,” says Ceci Vasconcellos, Las Cruces’s public art coordinator.  

Photograph courtesy of Hugh Meade.

 

Intersection Point Zero, Carrizozo 

Oklahoma-based sculptor Hugh Meade built Intersection Point Zero from two soaring arches—one blocky weathering steel, one swirling polished aluminum—that meet at a four-inch gap. Look up through the artwork on 12th Street in Carrizozo, and Meade wants you to picture a laser beam shooting straight through your body and out the other side of the Earth. It’s a conduit for creativity, no batteries required. Why Carrizozo? “There’s a weird magic to it,” says Meade, who also notes that the drive to the tiny town starts to “settle your mind” before you even arrive. 

Photograph courtesy of Warren Langford.

 

Cognition Enhancer, Santa Fe  

A giant puzzle looms at the northern edge of Santa Fe near Hotel Glorieta. Sculpted by Steve Kline in 1999, Cognition Enhancer magnifies a mystery molecule into towering steel in black, blue, yellow, and red. Legend has it that cheminformatics guru David Weininger invented a mind-altering drug too powerful for humanity, shelved it, and commissioned this sculpture as a tribute. Weininger later willed the property where the molecule resides to friend George R.R. Martin, which is now the home of Martin’s Stagecoach Foundation. “Science, art, and a little folklore all tangled into one strange, beautiful object,” says Brandon Behringer, the foundation’s creative manager. “That kind of playful, ‘What-is-this?’ curiosity feels about as New Mexico as it gets.”