The original Google Maps image of the Dairy, resplendent as a functioning dump, with multiple RVs. Updated image... hell yeah.
0 Comments
Since the house is now in relatively good shape, we are starting to focus on the barn, which will be an artist space. The barn, the oasis and the dune were what sold the property for me. My friend Jeanne, who knows farms, said it's small for a cow barn, but it's a big project. At least it's not filled with trash anymore (the before photos are at the end of this gallery). Today's job was to take all the books down, dust them, paint the wall behind the bookcase and clean the bookcase. Then organize everything so it makes sense: fiction, non, art history, American art, contemporary art, design, old books, soft porn (we found this set here, so great), travel, and nature. I definitely need to get some books on the desert.
AND we finally found an electrician who can begin to sort out the house, hence the working light and fan. Slowly, slowly. The next steps in our earth oven construction were to make the door (out of a beautiful old plank), repair a bit of damage caused by dampness, and then create a layer of insulation with bottles and cob mixed with straw. The bottles I picked up at the Stater Bros market recycling center (let's just say, 29 is not a wine drinking town).
My 17 year old was enlisted to help, and it was a miserable job because the winds were gale strength, not kidding. We could barely get they hay mixed in, and had to hold the tarp down with large rocks. The weather is just crazy out here. Now we have to put another layer of insulation on top. I'm hoping to use local clay for the last layer of cob. On the first day of the FIG Artist Retreat my friend and expert earth oven maker came up to lead us in the construction of the first layer of the oven. We started by creating the insulated base: bottles covered with a cob mixed with perlite. Then we laid on the fire bricks. Next we made more cob mixture (clay plus sand plus water), formed into balls that were pressed against the sand void form. Later I cut the opening for the mouth of the oven. So fun! Everyone loved it, and we avoided the rain, which began falling the next day (we covered the oven with a tarp). Now it will dry for a while until I can get more clay for the insulation layer. Turns out we have absolutely no clay on our land, although there is some in the Basin. There is only one other house on our dirt road. We can't see this house from our property because it is behind the dune. Two elderly bachelors live there, on a property similar to ours, from the 30s, surrounded by tamarisk trees and very isolated. We see the gentlemen drive by us occasionally. We've gotten to know them by bringing them a few hot meals, as they subsist mainly on tv dinners, and beer.
The elder man has lived there for 20 years. Now in his 80s, almost blind, he's still digging out his sceptic and chopping wood for the stove. He's planning to move into town soon. He told us his property may have originally been established by nuns who taught native people, and he can see the foundation of some kind of building near his well. The younger of the two is a self taught sculptor. He finds gnarled wood and makes fantastical creatures: roadrunners, dinosaurs, hippos, seahorses. He paints them if he has paint, or draws on them with sharpies. A glassblower friend is bringing out some beads for him to use as eyes. The sculptor sells his work out of his car, and sometimes just drives around to take the creatures for a ride. We invested in one, and I love it. We are a bit worried about these guys, as they live very much on the edge. The question is, how much to help? We’re getting ready to host our second big event next weekend. Our first event, a family and friends Thanksgiving weekend, was overshadowed by the death of our friend. We made it through, but our minds were elsewhere. Looking back we can see how our guests enjoyed being around the bonfire, in the sunroom, and on the patio. People felt comfortable taking little walks around to explore. My sister and her friend even set up a tent in the back. It was exciting to see cars lined up in our parking lot. Paella was successful. Made it on the BBQ but eventually hope to be able to use the earth oven for this dish, which I learned to make years ago in Spain. Sunroom can hold quite a crowd. Bonfire under the stars, using a drum horse feeder we found on our property. Thanksgiving proper on the patio. The turkey didn't get done in time but luckily I also made a ham. My mom taught me never to shirk on food!
After finishing my grades, buying and baking for the holidays, I came up to 29 for a few days with my trusty dog to work and enjoy the quiet. There were two jobs to do: dig and lay the foundation for the earth oven that we will build in January, and turn the RV into a tropical Tahitian paradise from the uninviting 80s mess it currently is (see next post). Defining jobs is important when you're here because there is so much to do it's overwhelming, and you find yourself walking in circles, directionless in the desert. One reason to build a traditional mud oven is to respect the land, using what's on hand rather than buying supplies. I'm following the advice of my clay mentor and friend, Terri H-O, and the book she recommended, Build Your Own Earth Oven by Kiko Denzer. I gathered all the concrete blocks that were spread out over our five acres, and all the broken bricks and "urbanite" (broken concrete trash). The wheel barrow is my friend and my arms are much stronger after three days of hauling heaving stuff. Here are the steps I followed so far: 1. dig down about 6" for the foundation (this area is not low, not at risk of flooding), and fill with gravel and rocks 2. set the first layer of bricks and start to fill in the cavity with the trash 3. continue each layer, filling with sand Our new handyguy, Solidfoto, helped out, although he's a perfectionist and is probably frustrated by my sloppy work (I actually like that we had to level one side with smaller bricks and it's multicolored and textured). The base is long to allow for a prep area beside the oven. I'm very proud of our foundation and can't wait to build the oven and get to baking pizza and bread! I drove down to the Palm Springs yesterday, after a long day of digging sand and moving rocks and bricks (more soon on this project). I went to see a friend's open studio, in a small strip mall where more than half the businesses are now artist work and show spaces. It brought home how much I miss having a studio with other artists nearby. Then I visited the Palm Springs Art Museum to see "Unsettled," art about the West and colonization. Strange experience to see more than four artists I know in the show, which I recommend.
Anyway, one of the reasons I went to the musem was to see in person the work of Agnes Pelton (1881-1961), an artist I find myself loving. The paintings are small and very smooth, actually better in photographs than in person. She moved to the Coachella Valley late in life and painted desert scenes for tourists. She's finally getting some recognition, similar in many ways to Hilma af Klint, which her work resembles although they probably didn't know of each other. Both mystical leaning. One of my goals being in the desert is to allow it to affect my work. Have to be patient on this. As you have all read, when we got this place there was about 40,000 pounds of trash on it. We needed 8 large dumpsters to get most of the big stuff off the property and we still have a pile of tires and many broken TV sets, but the place does look better and you can for the first time get an actual view of the land. But, once the big trash was gone that left the small trash. Small broken piece of glass and plastic, decomposing books and catalogs, wires from old electronics and whatever else you can think of that can degrade into small pieces. The property is a microcosm of the ocean. Small pieces of plastic everywhere and when you try to grab them they break into even smaller pieces. Anna loves this rehab process but I will admit this whole desert exercise stresses me out to no end. I do enjoy, however, just raking the sandy soil to try to clean up all the small stuff that is hiding there. It is a very zen-ish process for me. I also feel I'm becoming some sort of historical scientist. Ted Meyer - Desert Archaeologist. I start by raking the top layer of sand and then I go deeper, raking down a few more inches where I find an entirely different layer of remnants. If I revisit the same patch of soil two weeks later, after the wind has blown, the exact place will present a totally new layer of artifacts. Today I spent about four hours raking dirt. Here is a selection of some of my favorite things that were hiding in plain sight. ~ Ted We had a tragedy here last week. It's hard to write about, but I want to remember and honor Mike McLaughlin, our Desert Handyguy, who died in a solo rollover accident the day before Thanksgiving. He was driving home to Joshua Tree after work and fell asleep. He was 32 and we had known him only five months, but he was our friend. We first found Mike through the internet, when he came out to dig up our broken water pipe. He fixed the break by the well, I turned on the water in the kitchen sink (dry for over three months), it ran, we cheered, and then the water slowed to a trickle. Another break. Then Mike gamely RAN across the five acres from the house to the well (it was July, so about 105), looking for the wet spot. Over two days he fixed five breaks. This sealed the deal, the guy was a champ. Besides his tremendous physical energy, Mike was a talker. When you told him something crazy, he'd say, "No way!" Sometimes you had to stop him because he could chat on and on, jumping from one subject to another. He told us all about his life with his chickens, horses, pig, and dog Pixie (who had cancer and later disappeared; Mike held on to hope that she'd been stolen, he just couldn't admit that she was gone). He was a surfer from OC, but had moved to the desert and loved life out here. He told us about his garden--planted too many trees resulting in $400 water bill--and fighting the pests, about his girlfriend and his crazy neighbors who were always up to no good (there's the rural poverty thing again). At one point he had to stop to take care of his dad who had heart surgery. Mike was a rescuer, even if he wasn't always careful about choosing his friends. He'd gotten into trouble earlier in life and was paying restitution now. He needed the money badly, so worked a lot. Too much. He fixed a gray water situation for us, then organized crews to pick up trash by hand (the bull dozer we used earlier broke the water pipes). He earned our trust so we gave him the keys, and had him start on the bathroom, which was basically non-functional: rusted pipes, leaking cast iron tub, trip-over-toilet-tiny. He powered through the hottest months of August and September. The shower became a work of art. I laid out the tile samples and let him go. He incorporated rocks from the yard, creating clever visual compositions within the larger stall. I love these text messages from Mike, they show his dry sense of humor and his kindness: Mike was a photographer (he took the photo of the owl in our oasis) and a physical daredevil. He told us about hidden canyons and crazy trails. His Instagram is filled with surfing, his dog, and the outdoors. He was constantly helping people stranded in the desert, pulling vehicles out of ditches. He loved his truck and every time we paid him, poured money into it. He sometimes showed up looking like he'd been up all night working on it, with grease on his hands and face. He rarely ate. We worried about him, getting so thin. I left him and his buddies pizza in the freezer, and one day I made a plate of roast beef and broccoli, which he didn't touch.
We have many texts from him and he always said, "Thank you for everything." He was our guy and we told him to arrange everything and every one, and I think he liked the responsibility. He asked me about my painting, said he wanted to be an artist. His life wasn't easy but he lived fully. One of his last Instagrams says, "Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die. Do not outlive yourself." Thank you, Mike. And no way. We are throwing our first big party--Thanksgiving on a Saturday--and friends and family are driving out to stay. It's a test to see how the property works with lots of people on it, and also a deadline to get projects done. Here's the list of our major accomplishments over the seven months we've owned the property: 6 or so (lost count) large bigs of trash collected and removed barn roof started (not finished yet) well rebuilt, water restored to property electric panel updated front and side yards detrashed, enough to be raked trees planted house roof patched sunroom ceiling and insulation redone after leak most rooms painted bathroom redone bad RV removed, useful one set up March 2018 November 2018
I’m starting to work minutely on the core of the farmhouse: a room we call the office, and the hallway. As I clean, scrape and paint, I uncover clues to the past residents—who they were and how they lived. What we call our Desert Dairy was built in 1930 and 1932: two buildings recorded by San Bernadino County, a barn and a house. There are remnants of outbuildings that also served the dairy: an outhouse, a shed with a refrigerated room (with a wood door over 12” thick), and a secondary milking barn. There was water and the area must have been lush. I imagine a couple from the mid-west (Utah because we are off Utah Trail), pre-Dust Bowl, and pre-Homestead Act of 1938 (in which you could get 5 acres of land and build a 400 square foot Jackrabbit Homestead)—I think our acreage was originally larger to support a dairy farm. Our original house was probably less than 600 square feet, and had neither bathroom nor electricity (explains why we have almost no light switches). A large porch wrapped around the eastern and southern sides, which was quickly enclosed. In fact, the original owners enlarged the house by 9’ on every side (like a donut), adding a bathroom and formal kitchen, and pushing the fireplace to the interior of the house, along with exterior windows and door openings. The basement, or root cellar, is dug out below the original house, and the trapdoor (a la Wizard of Oz), once on the exterior of the house, is now in the laundry room floor. And yes, it’s a bit scary. The original farmhouse was painted green, and the trim was bright aqua and orange (super cool that we chose green and orange as our colors, without knowing this!). We are hoping to hold on to our beautiful fireplace, and saving as many details of the original building as we can. Here are my imaginings on the past owners… From 1930 to 1960 our property functioned as a dairy farm. With young children, they lived the rural life (the population of Twentynine Palms in 1970 was only about 5000), and then sold the farm because the water ran out and the children moved to LA. We found evidence of blacksmithing, canning, old milk crates… but this family remains in shadow for me. The next family that moved in was the one that sold the property to us. The owner was four years old when she moved to the property, and she sold it to us in her late 60s. Her father and brother were miners, which explain the abundance of exotic rocks all around the house. Her father was also an artist, and made plaster and concrete casts. Today I scrubbed the narrow hallway which includes the original closets with wallpapered cabinets: up high they were blackened with cigarette smoke, and low they were covered with splashes of coffee and dirt. I imagine all the encounters that occurred in that hallway: early morning bumping and late night drunken brawling. You can’t pass without rubbing shoulders. But I’m grateful to have the original panels, which I love. All the original doors are still in the house, including pocket doors that separate the living room from the kitchen. Solid paneled doors are pocked and gashed with living that sometimes looks violent. As the second family sunk into poverty, life became hard. There is evidence of culture--we found encyclopedias and sets of china in the yard--but we saw fear, too—the master bedroom had multiple bolt locks on the door, as if the owner barricaded herself in. This is not a luxurious house, by a long shot. It’s a hard-working, tough-living house that is dusty and beyond worn, but still functional. Drama and pain happened here, you can feel it. But people also loved the simple life—they sat around bonfires, they dreamed of finding gold, they raised children whose names are still on paint cans in the shed. In the end, they sold their property as a trash dump and rented space to drug addicts in order to survive. We’re going to do better. the office, with hand painted floor inspired by hallway panels. The hallway, patched and cleaned up.
As you have all read, when we got this place there was about 40,000 pounds of trash on it. We needed 8 large dumpsters to get most of the big stuff off the property and we still have a pile of tires and many broken TV sets, but the place does look better and you can for the first time get an actual view of the property. But, once the big trash was gone that left the small trash. Small broken piece of glass and plastic, decomposing books and catalogs, wires from old electronics and whatever else you can think of that can breakdown or degrade into small pieces. The property is a microcosm of the ocean. Small pieces of plastic everywhere and when you try to grab them they breaks into even smaller pieces. Anna loves this rehab process but I will admit this whole desert exercise stresses me out to no end, but I do enjoy just raking the sandy soil to try to clean up all the small stuff that is hiding there. It is a very zen-ish process for me. I also feel as if I am becoming some sort of archeologist. Ted Meyer - Desert Archaeologist. I start by raking the top layer if sand and then I go deeper and rake down a few more inches where I find an entirely different layer of remnants. If I revisit the same patch of soil 2 weeks later after the wind has blown I could re-rake the exact same place and find totally new layer of artifacts. Today I spent about 4 hours raking dirt.. Here is a selections of some of my favorite things that were hiding in plane site. ~ Ted Ted and I both love vintage things and shop at thrift and second-hand shops. So it makes sense that at the Desert Dairy we resolve not to buy new, but reuse, recycle and up-cycle--intensified by the guilt we feel about the amount of trash we are sending to the landfill from this property.
It just so happens that the desert is famous for its second hand shops, both down below and here. Today I took Ted to a shop I've been in once before in 29 run by a lady from Maine (who hates the desert), her husband (who loves it) and their dog. Since we're prepping for a big Tday feast, I found several platters, some pie tins, and other baking essentials. We also bought sweaters because it's getting chilly! Sadly, a few days ago our worker's small dog got attacked by a coyote on our property. She was bitten several times in the neck but managed to escape. Hopefully she'll recover, but I have to stop allowing my dog free reign outside, even during daylight. We've been waiting and waiting for it to be cold enough to start a fire. Finally. This fire pit was actually laid by the previous owners, under a pile of trash. The tamarisk are coming back and actually start to look romantic. We spent the day picking up trash (what else), and planted two new trees: a mesquite and a palo verde. Slowly, slowly.
I went to the Hwy 62 Open Studios tours the Sunday after the big floods. I stayed in the far east, visiting the 29 Palms Gallery to see my friend Ben Allenoff's show (wonderful sculptor working with rust stains), a gallery in an old car mechanic shop, a kids' school in an old motel, and two homesteads out in Wonder Valley. The photos show the homesteads, a lovely place filled with antiques from the 40s, and a crazy mosaic house. I also visited Cybele Rowe's giant outdoor ceramics in Yucca.
Basically my abbreviated tour confirmed what I've already begun to suspect: the artists working out in the desert are the real deal: authentic, devoted, friendly, and unaffected by the market. I can't wait to be a part of it! I haven't been writing much because, one, October has been crazy with work and shows, and two, the Dairy is at the point of getting worse rather than better. The two converged recently: I taught in San Diego, then drove to 29, met with handyguys for an hour, and then drove to LA for an artfair the next day. 375 miles in about 12 hours. Driving is part of my job right now. Sixty years of deferred maintenance is a bitch. Here's the construction update, filled with comedy and sorrow: Bathroom: Money continues to flow into that hole. The "free" tile mosaic shower stall took forever to install, but it's a work of art. Handyguy even cut some rocks from the yard and fit them into the walls. We didn't have enough free tiles to finish the floor. Each is 12" x 36", too fragile to ship, so I had to drive to Anaheim and pick up a few more boxes, which of course I didn't open. A few days later I drove them to the Dairy, and when Handyguy tried to finish the floor, the tiles turned out to be patterned and textured. Ugh. The wholesaler couldn't get replacements for six weeks, so we have decided to use the pattern and be damned. That blocked pipe in photo? The water heater before being replaced. Nice, huh? Roof and leaks: Original farm roof is sloped, but the addition was flat, and now sagging, hence the pool up there when it rains. We decided to patch it rather than replace the entire roof. Then replace insulation in the sun room, currently wet and not the correct grade (why, if you were insulating, wouldn't you use the right stuff?)
Fireplace: There is no heat in the house except the fireplace, so we got a chimneysweep out there to inspect. And of course, it's a disaster. The fireplace is not really a fireplace in the modern/safe/permitted definition. It's just a rock wall with no innards. The current insert is very dangerous. Since it's probably been in continual use for 90 years, I don't know how the house escaped being burned to the ground. We either have to tear it down and rebuild it, or leave it as decoration, which is probably our option now (campy electric logs, anyone?). Barn: Still nothing happening, our San Diego contractor is too busy. So we'll bring a guy from LA to finish the roof there. Trash situation: All the construction is creating more trash, so we'll soon have to do another huge bin. Will cut up the jacuzzi (yes, of course there's an in-ground one sitting above ground), and one more big pile by the barn. All this push is for November when family will descend upon the desert. Party deadlines have always been the way I've cleaned my houses, this is just a really big clean up. A hurricane came up from Mexico, and while it rained in both San Diego and Los Angeles, it absolutely poured in the Morongo Basin. Even the old timers were impressed. All that water flows off the mountains and flash floods the valleys. Highway 62 was closed, cars, sidewalks and yards were washed away. Worst hit was Joshua Tree Village, which is low. We didn’t have much damage except for a roof leak, which turns into another thing that has to be fixed. Our handy guy's truck. Insulation, which basically sucked, is now wet and has to be taken out. Sigh.
I'm starting to make work about the desert. Have dragged pieces of found metal--corrugated, flat, torn, crumpled--back to my studio in San Diego to make attempts at some landscapes. The sky is my theme, with stuff that is in it, like the vultures I see often over the Dairy. And of course, scorpions. I've also got a recurring interest in drones, which fits with the base nearby. Don't know if they're working yet.
Our security cameras went out midweek, and T was convinced of the worst (thieves, vandals, fire!). But it turned out that our internet was cut because someone, who will be unnamed, lost his credit cards and forgot to update the account with the new number. Anyway, it was a relief that all remains tight in our little disaster of a property.
Five degrees cooler makes it almost bearable in 29, so I spent two days madly working. I repainted the office wall beige (pink did NOT work), I cleaned up from the bathroom construction, I realized at 4am that the bathroom configuration we had decided on was in fact TERRIBLE, and we reversed course. I met our handyguy at Home Depot and spent a fortune (tariffs at work), and I laid out the tile for the shower all over the living room floor. I got the last of the strange garden structure in the front yard removed, using the wheelbarrow. Manual labor is what I wanted in my life, and I got it. Looking forward to my first event in the desert as an artist, next weekend! I will be showing our Hill&Stump series--we've painted new desert plants specifically for this show. I may also throw in a few new experiments I'm starting with materials found on the Dairy.
Just a little worried about setting up the tent and walls in this place that can be so windy. Not to mention the heat... hoping for under 100 next weekend. Below are the paintings already up in the Dairy, under the new orange wall. |
Archives
August 2023
Categories
All
AuthorsAnna does most of the writing. Ted does most of the photos. But sometimes we switch. We are repairing a distressed property in 29 Palms, California, and eventually hope to run an artist residency there. |