When artist Molly Mendenhall gets to work on her mural inside the New Mexico History Museum this fall, she’ll be stepping into unfamiliar territory. The Los Lunas born painter will spend several weeks in Santa Fe creating a large-scale piece celebrating the 100th anniversary of Route 66, painting live in the museum’s lobby while visitors walk past.
“It’ll be the first time I’ve painted outside of Albuquerque,” says Mendenhall. “It’ll be a little bit of an experiment for me.”
For Mendenhall, this latest commission is the newest bend in a creative journey that’s rarely followed a straight line. She’s been painting and drawing “for as long as I can remember,” she says, recalling the weekly lessons she took as a child with local artist Veronica Piastok.
“It was a small class. There were only a few of us, and we had a couple hours in the afternoon on Mondays to work on a personal project.” says Mendenhall. “I think that that played a huge part in being able to make time for that consistently.”
That early discipline would carry her through years of experimentation and reinvention. Before she ever touched a mural wall, Mendenhall spent a decade running a farm. Her weekends were devoted to the Downtown Albuquerque Farmers Market, where she sold produce and, occasionally, greeting cards that featured her hand-drawn illustrations.
“I would bring my cards there with some of my illustrations that I was making just for fun,” says Mendenhall. “I sold some cards as well as my produce.”
Her pivot toward public art came almost by accident. In the winter of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, a high school friend reached out: Gravity Bound in Albuquerque was looking for someone to paint a mural.
“Everything was kind of up in the air then. It was winter, so I wasn’t farming actively, and it just felt like the right opportunity to jump at. It opened the door and gave me a reason to reconsider my farming career,” says Mendenhall.
Since that first project, she’s become one of the city’s most visible muralists. Her pieces can now be found at Gravity Bound, Oni, Canteen Brewing and Bookworks, each marked by her signature blend of organic imagery and vibrant colors.
Painting in public, she says, has become one of the unexpected joys of her work. “That’s one of the reasons I really love murals,” says Mendenhall. “It’s nice to have a reason to be out talking to people. Painting streetside on Central can be intense, but the interactions I have with all kinds of people are super positive.”
The upcoming Santa Fe mural, however, will offer a different kind of experience. While visitors will be allowed to watch her work during museum hours, she expects a quieter atmosphere than her usual street-side setups.
Mendenhall’s design for the History Museum tells a story of movement and transformation. It begins with a black-and-white rendering of an old Route 66 scene, then gradually transitions into a modern landscape alive with color.
“What I want people to take away is that Route 66 played a role in creating these communities that still exist today,” says Mendenhall. “These communities are known for being very culturally rich and very rich in the history of the arts. It’s something that I feel like is still vibrant to this day.”
The mural must be completed by New Year’s Day, when the museum officially celebrates the Route 66 centennial.
As she prepares to trade her home studio in Los Lunas for the walls of a Santa Fe museum, Mendenhall sees the project as both a challenge and a gift to the community that took her from farmer to muralist.