If you have not been to downtown Portales this past week, you have missed something out of the ordinary for a small town like ours.

Military wife and Garden Source employee, Paula Grady has successfully set up eight pop-up art installations in Portales.  Five of which are located around the square. Several local businesses had agreed on placing her intriguing creations outside of their workplaces, these locals include Woody’s Jewelry, Aj’s Wings, The YAM, Enchanted Vineyards, Do Drop In, The Portales Public Library, Sweetwaters at Landalls, and her place of work Garden Source.

Paula Grady pictured on the right.

When we contacted Paula and asked her how she came up with this originative idea, she simply said that origami is a hobby for her. For Paula it seemed that lately, she had quite a few sad moments where she found herself missing her loved ones. Whether that be her two best friends who had previously been stationed in Roosevelt County had moved away, having close ones pass on, or simply even just missing qualities or aspects of friends who she had not been familiar with in a while. Paula claimed that she had not intended on doing a pop-up art installation around town. She said that this project idea just fell into her lap one day while she was holding the origami butterflies she had made and inherited a group of branches from a friend.

The concept for the project came from the feelings she had for her loved ones. The feelings of missing her family and friends who had gone in one way or another. Paula wanted to set her feelings free by what doing what she loves to do, being creative. Paula painted the branches she had received with copper colored paint, strung her origami butterflies with copper wire (garland style) along the branches of the tree, and finally put them in cement so they could withstand the crazy Portales wind.

                                              Taken from Garden Source’s Facebook Page. Pictured above is Paula Grady’s art installation at Garden Source.

Another source of Paula’s inspiration came from her close friend Elijah Nieto. Elijah had graduated four years ago from Eastern New Mexico University and is now teaching high school art in Carlsbad. Paula claimed that Elijah and herself used to collaborate and create different types of art projects and installations together. Some other muse of hers was where she used to live in Phoenix.  Paula said that she respected all of the brave artists who had made pop-up installations and murals there.  She wanted to share this type of spirit with Portales.

Written by Jacqueline Grider