Photos by Mary Alice Murphy
Dedication of Big Ditch Mural 072317
Dedication of Big Ditch Mural 072317
The mural is broad. This is the first of nine images of the entire mural from the left end. "The long prayed for rain came..."
Dedication of Big Ditch Mural 072317
Second section from left "...The sombre (sic) clouds…"
Dedication of Big Ditch Mural 072317
Next section. "...Gloom upon the hillside which gathered the waters…"
Dedication of Big Ditch Mural 072317
"...It swept down the narrow gorge…"
Dedication of Big Ditch Mural 072317
"…upon the town of Silver City."
Dedication of Big Ditch Mural 072317
"This flood struck the town in an immense wave…."
Dedication of Big Ditch Mural 072317
"…three hundred feet in width…."
Dedication of Big Ditch Mural 072317
"…by 1907 (it) acquired a new nickname—'The Big Ditch.'" …"it literally split the town."
Dedication of Big Ditch Mural 072317
Diana Ingalls Leyba, who directs the youth mural project, talks about this mural in the Big Ditch.
Dedication of Big Ditch Mural 072317
Dedication of Big Ditch Mural 072317
Involved in the process of this mural were, from left, Iris Johnson, Teja Clark, Ingalls Leyba, organizer of the Clay Festival Lee Gruber, and Mimbres Region Arts Council Director Kevin Lenkner.
On Sunday afternoon, as part of the Clay Festival 2017, the tile Big Ditch mural on the side of the cliff created by the floodwaters of the late 1890s and early 1900s, Diana Ingalls Leyba, Youth Mural Program director under the auspices of the Mimbres Region Arts Council, dedicated the mural. The mural is on a stabilized wall behind Diane's Restaurant.
"This is one of those murals that so much of the community has been involved in," Ingalls Leyba said. "Especially on Comcast Cares Day. And we went into five or six schools. Community members created more than 2,000 raindrops. Some are on the Silver City Public Library mural, but I still have 11 boxes. Some will be in the Yankie Street mural. People wonder why our curbs are so high," she said referring to the car scraping curbs to allow rain and floodwater to funnel down Yankie Street, without entering buildings.
She said Syzygy Tile is the backbone of any clay mural. "They always fire the tiles for us."
Ingalls Leyba said that Diane's wanted a mural behind the restaurant, and helped sponsor it. The theme of the Big Ditch flood, which took out what had been Silver City's Main Street, seemed appropriate.
"Aldo Leopold Charter School students did the design and planned what went where," Ingalls Leyba said. "Carol Brady and Patty McDonald helped with the grout."
Schools involved included Silver Schools Harrison Schmitt Elementary and Stout Elementary, Aldo Leopold Middle School, Guadalupe Montessori School, and from the Cobre District, San Lorenzo, Bayard, Hurley and Central elementary schools.
Other helpers included Kathryn Allen, Zoe Wolfe, Erika Burleigh, Wendy Shaul and David Palmer.
Sponsors included the Lineberry Foundation, Wendy and Dave Phillips, and New Mexico Humanities.