Multimedia artist, musician, and entrepreneur Oshri Hakak joined us for a week of perfect fall weather. He worked on illustrations for a children's book he's writing, a project that had been on his shelf for a long time. He also practiced his French horn in the barn, our first music to be played there. It was wonderful. And he gave us a sound healing as a parting gift.
Oshri hopes to come back to the Desert Dairy again soon, he got so much done. For now, he has to go back to manage his vegan chocolate company. A man of many talents!

Dylan Mortimer did a short residency in May, in which he painted the dead tree by our corral. He's been painting trees to rebirth them and bring attention to lung/organ transplants and his post transplant life. www.dylanmortimer.com

Resident Artist Cindy Zimmerman is building a permanent installation in an old cold storage room in our barn. She's been planning this for about a year, and has been in residency for several weeks. We are very excited! Plus, we'll be serving ice cream at the opening. 
See her video here.

Susan Roden, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, created a permanent sculpture at the Desert Dairy, and worked on her paintings and assemblage sculpture. See video here.

We were pleased to have Bay Area multimedia artist Michele Guieu return for a second residency. She created another temporary installation on the grounds of the Desert Dairy. 
Please click here to see a video of this incredible piece.

See video here.

“A residency is a gift to an artist allowing time to reflect on their artistic path, with an added provision of a different environment to inspire and expand creativity.”
 
To honor the opportunity of her February 2021 residency at the Desert Dairy Farm, Susan E. Roden will be creating a public art piece, A DESERT SCULPTURE which will address the fragility of Nature.

Pictured is the painted maquette built to scale and detail, illustrating the intended area’s natural habitat with inclusion of a jet in reference to the Twentynine Palms Marine Base. ­­­­­­Some of the imagery pictured would be the jet, craggy mountain ranges, joshua trees, scrub, raven, big-horned ram, and black-earred jack rabbits.

A Kickstarter project has been created to aid in the building and installation of A DESERT SCULPTURE and run through January 16th. The sculpture is a three-sided, triangular wooden tower that would spire up to nearly seven feet at completion. It would be comprised of five components, consisting of a wooden base, inner pole support, two main body parts (not for the functionality but rather for ease and minimal costs in transportation) and topped with a three-dimensional cow made from recycled materials. The cow will be completed during the residency and installed at the ending.
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Once completed the sculpture should flow within the environment rather than be intrusive.

​CINDY ZIMMERMAN’S GROTTO PROJECT
 
I will be in residence at Desert Dairy early January and again in April to create a grotto in the 5’ wide x 9’ long x 8’ high milk storage room of the former dairy barn. The dairy is a remnant of the decade or so in the early 20th century when it rained a lot in the Mojave. The rest of the barn is now a studio and gallery complex, and my grotto will be situated in the lean-to portion of the structure. 
 
All my life I have been working in tight spaces and bunker-like environments, by choice and by necessity: side rooms, back rooms and closets, tiny studios, the hallway of a rec center, a pillbox on a former military base, an oversize wooden crate, a sandbag cubicle, and most recently, the Cooler Room at Art Produce Gallery in San Diego.
 
The cave-like Desert Dairy space will become an ornate, maximalist chamber, with an altar made of concrete garden features, fake rocks, niches, weathered wood, a vintage milk can, and the illusion of flowing water. Cave paintings will feature a bestiary of lactating animals and carnivorous birds. An imagined portal opposite the door will lead into the cosmos, with heaven painted on the ceiling.
 
The space I will create is more like the chapels you would find in an airport or a hospital, a place to go while engaged in other pursuits, for reflection, taking a pause, setting intentions, maybe creating your own private rituals. The grotto will not be religion-affiliated; it will be sacred and profane, casual rather than formal, and not purporting to have any particular wellness or occult benefits for the visitor. I will continue to return as this project unfolds, and to enjoy the solitude and validation of the visionary experiences that enable my art.