From the heart: Popular farmer’s market artist to create the 2024 Las Cruces film fest poster

Popular Las Cruces artist Vicki Crouse Henley, a mainstay of the Las Cruces Farmer’s and Crafts Market, will take center stage this year as the poster artist for the Las Cruces International Film Festival.

The LCIFF board chooses an artist each year to design the poster that will promote and set the backdrop for the annual festival. Executive Director Ross Marks said the board polled the community this year and Henley’s name quickly rose to the top of the list.

“We wanted to really find a grassroots community person so we thought we would highlight the farmer’s market and the artists – there’s so many artists at the farmer’s market,” Marks said. “We thought this was a great way to really honor a true community artist.”

Art as a way of life

Crouse Henley has lived in Las Cruces since her early 20s and has been a staple of the weekend markets for 13 years. Her paintings include animals, trees, flowers and positive words on canvasses of all sizes.

The whimsical themes and bright colors often have people coming up to her to say her work “makes (them) happy.”

But while artistry was always part of her being, it was not until later in life she found it could be a career too.

“I like to tell people just through my discovery that I think most people … if we pay attention when we're like 8 or 9 years old, of what our interests are we should go on that path,” Crouse Henley said. “I would sit there and write, or I would paint something – I wasn't much of a painter then – but I would create something, or I’d go collect rocks. And I’d think ‘I'm not good at anything’ and I was always being creative, but I didn't think that was possible to do as a career.”

Crouse Henley jumped from going to school for education and teaching to working in a hospital, earning a degree in criminal justice at New Mexico State University and cleaning houses but never found a job she truly enjoyed.

It wasn’t until she was going through a divorce, moving and reorganizing her life that a reminder from her daughter set her on track.

“She was like, ‘mom, you can't just wait for happiness. You have to go grab it.’ And I was like how did you get so smart? And she goes, … ‘I learned it from you, you just forgot,’" Crouse Henley recalled. "And, so, I started painting."

Her medium of choice? Acrylic on stretched canvas.

Some of her early pieces featured girls with positive quotes featured on their aprons. Crouse Henley said she “kind of healed (herself) with that.” Someone saw one of the girls and offered to buy the painting, and the artist’s business began.

Within a year she said she started going to the Las Cruces Farmer’s and Crafts Market and found an enthusiastic customer base. Her confidence in her artistry only grew from a table set up to filling two spaces allotted by the market board.

She eventually devoted herself fulltime to painting and said her income tripled because her energy was totally focused on art.

“My goal in life was just to be happy. I didn’t know how that was going to happen, but I just wanted to be a happy person and a very optimistic person. And I think that comes forth in my art,” Crouse Henley said. “Every Saturday (customers) will be like ‘your art just makes me happy.’ And I’m like, I would rather have that than any compliment in the world, is to help somebody be happy, because that’s a chore sometimes in this world.”

Her paintings today feature a range of animals including various feathered creatures, cows, llamas, horses, pigs, as well as trees, poppies, sunflowers and other flora. Crouse Henley said flowers are her favorite subject to paint, if she was asked to choose.

“I think flowers just give us so many lessons in life,” she said.

Capturing the desert for LCIFF 2024

Crouse Henley’s plan is to paint an oversized canvas with the Organ Mountains, poppies, and desert for the film festival poster. And while sunflowers are not necessarily native to the area, festival goers are likely to find them in the poster art. She described it as a collage of meaningful desert images as well as a personal collage of home.

“It comes from my heart. I paint what I love, and I love everything,” she said.

The poster will officially be revealed during a party from 6 to 8 p.m. March 1 at the Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum. Admission is $25, which includes a collectable poster, food, a drink and music entertainment. The museum is located at 4100 Dripping Springs Rd.

Crouse Henley will be on hand during the reveal party to sign the posters. The self-described "homebody" will be joined by family and friends. Her original artwork will be auctioned off during the reveal party.

She also plans on taking in the festival this year – her first ever. The ninth annual LCIFF will take place April 3 through April 7 at the Allen Theatre’s Cineport 10. Tickets are available to purchase online at lascrucesfilmfest.com.

Leah Romero is the trending reporter at the Las Cruces Sun-News and can be reached at 575-418-3442, LRomero@lcsun-news.com or @rromero_leah on X, formerly Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Popular farmer’s market artist to create the 2024 Las Cruces film fest poster