There’s a small grocery store in Madrid, New Mexico, in a building with the name “Old Boarding House Mercantile.” If you haven’t been to Madrid, New Mexico, it’s a tiny town (population 248) that was once a coal mining town, and is now primarily an artists’ community with galleries, shops and restaurants on both sides of New Mexico State Road 14 (also known as “The Turquoise Trail”). It doesn’t take much more than a couple minutes to drive through the entirity of the town, but at only 28 miles out of Santa Fe, it’s worth a trip to check things out – which I’ve done a couple times on trips to New Mexico over the years.
This guy – “Butt Head” – as noted on the forehead and where the left-side eye should be – is a hand-carved cigarette butt stand, topped off with an upside-down army helmet with sand for the cigarette butts. My guess is that the artist who made this doesn’t think too highly of smokers, as Mr. Butt Head appears to be gasping for breath, presumably from smoking too many cigarettes.
I’m not sure who the artist is – perhaps I should have asked as I went inside the grocery store looking for something to drink – but I certainly like it as a folk art sculpture.