Queen of the Night

“Queen of the Night” was a self-directed project in my Intermediate Sculpture class taught by Professor Carissa Samaniego at New Mexico State University. The criteria I had was to address the contemporary issues of authorship, which I chose to address by including my husband as a resource. He helped me fulfill my vision for the project as I was not physically capable of doing some of the techniques without his help due to the lack of machinery available to me. He also helped with the electrical components since he is good at electrical schematics, and I am unfamiliar with electrical wiring. I only gave credit to myself for creating the work when I presented “Queen of the Night” to the class.

Most of my work relates to bringing awareness for wildlife conservation, preservation, and protection, including animals, plants, and their natural environments. I have been focusing on the Chihuahuan Desert in the southern region of New Mexico especially, as that is where I reside. I am creating a cacti series of native species in New Mexico. For this project, I knew I wanted to work with steel and combine electrical components with it. After researching the native cacti of New Mexico, I chose to do a representation of the Peniocereus greggii, also known as a night-blooming cereus, which is a flowering ceroid cacti that blooms only at night. This cacti species only blooms once a year, usually in May or June and all the flowers ordinarily bloom at the same time after sundown and the flowers are gone by sunrise thus giving it another common name, “Queen of the Night.” It is found in Dona Ana, Grant, Hidalgo, and Luna counties in New Mexico. I wanted to draw attention to this particular cactus because unfortunately, it is listed as endangered by the State of New Mexico due to collectors removing it from its habitat, development, and agriculture. There are several reasons why I wanted to display it elegantly: it only blooms once a year and when it does it is a spectacular occasion, it is a rare cactus because its population has declined, and one of its common names includes “queen.” Fairy lights with copper wiring seemed an appropriate choice to represent its elegance. The fairy lights glow a warm white adding to the richness of the copper wiring and patina. Similarly to how the cactus blooms can only be viewed at night, this sculpture is meant to be viewed at night or in a dark space, but it can also be viewed in other lighting for a different interaction. It can be operated using a battery pack or plugging into the wall.