Joshua Tree National Park - Artist in Residence Day 2

Collaborative Painting

I spent today painting with 6th graders at a local school.  This is the same group of kids I worked with during my fall residency here.  For this project, I'm building on my prior classroom and field trip instruction as we create three large, 30x48," landscape paintings in acrylic on canvas.  Each represents a different area of the park during a different time of day.  I love these kinds of projects, working with just 2-3 kids at a time, helping them develop individual parts that together become a cohesive whole.  I'll be spending a number of days at the school painting with the kids this week and next, but plan to fit in some extended hiking time over the weekend.  

Even though I haven't had much time in the park yet, I am so content to be here.  I love the mojave fiercely, the long stretches of road, the desert plants, the expansive space.  I drove home from the school with the remarkable Mount San Gorgonio and the San Bernardino Mountains on the horizon.  In the afternoon sun, these mountains are layered in such perfect cutouts, lighter as they recede into the distance, like forms cut from shades of blue paper.  They don't look real.  The camera cannot do justice to this phenomena, and a painting would fail to convey the expansive sense one gets from watching them tower over the desert floor from a distance, the peculiar sense of being simultaneously minuscule and all-encompassing.  I began to feel prematurely nostalgic.  This time will go fast, and Joshua Tree is not a quick drive from home, so it may be a long time before I have reason to return.  I cherish the deep sense of belonging that comes from my travels as an artist in residence, finding home in a diversity of places.  This connection to place drives my work, and the chance to exist within a variety of communities and cultures allows for an understanding of the interdependence between the personality of a place and its people.  Added to that are the unique issues of national parks, the struggle to balance preservation with visitation.  While often dramatically different on the surface, these various parks, landscapes, and communities are remarkably similar at their core.  I am ever grateful for the privilege of these experiences, the chance to learn, to question, to connect.     

Getting started.

Foundation for a view of the pinto basin and Cholla Cactus.

Foundation for a Lost Horse Valley landscape.

Joshua Tree National Park - Artist in Residence Day 1

Settling In

I arrived in the park two days ago, checked in to my park housing and dropped off a bunch of gear, then spent a couple nights at the Harmony Motel with my family.  I love the Harmony, it's small, clean, and lovely.  U2 stayed there in the 80s during their trip through the Mojave desert preceding the release of The Joshua Tree album, so it has a neat bit of history as well.  My kids were on spring break this past week, so we took advantage of the timing and drove down to visit Death Valley, some family, more family, LA, Joshua Tree, and Palm Springs.  My family flew home early this morning from Palm Springs, and I made a couple stops for groceries before driving back up to the park and getting settled in.

For this residency, my public outreach will take the form of collaborative paintings with fifty local 6th graders.  I spent the evening planning out the three large paintings and getting ready to start the process tomorrow.  Since today was busy working on logistics, I'll share some photos I took in the park a couple days ago.

Monzogranite rock formation behind Ryan Ranch.

Adobe ruins of the old Ryan Ranch house.

The remains of a very large Joshua Tree in the Covington Flats area.

Mount San Jacinto rising above the Coachella Valley.