 I'm about to fly to Atlanta to see my Tuba-playing son perform with the Blue Devils (am beyond proud of him, BD is the #1 team in the world), and then drive to Tennessee to work on a new set of desert florals with Daphne (www.hillandstump.com). So, I came back to 29 for a few days to water and make sure everything's ok. And because I miss it and love it here.
The weather had been nasty, but was supposed to cool down. First day was not good, over 110, although I saw two shooting stars. Next day was 107 by 2pm, and Ted was driving out, so we met at a friend's pool in Joshua Tree to cool down. By the time we got there it was only 92, and cloudy. Nice. That night, storms moved in, and at midnight a lightning strike knocked out the power. As rains moved in, we slept in the open doorway to get air (bedroom pretty much sealed up to keep in the AC, useless with no power). By 8am there was still no electricity, which for us also means no well pumping water. We hit McDonalds for coffee because our favorite shop (Jumbo Rock in the Mobil station) was closed, and it turns out McD's is super lux in 29, with a large dining room equipped for computer use. The day continued in true monsoon fashion, with pouring rain followed by hot sun steaming the sand. It felt like Thailand. Sadly, the roof again has leaks, but our guy thinks he can seal them. Even though it was still a bit rainy, I took a shower outdoors under a spectacular sunset, and then sat in my eastward facing chair with my trusty dog on lap. Perfect.
0 Comments
I loved the residency hacienda in Maravatio so much, I was worried I'd be disappointed to return to the Mojave. Relieved to say, am very glad to be back. The swamp cooler is working, and I've swept and mopped, restocked the fridge, and made new lists of things to fix/clean/remodel. New summer schedule: get up at 5am, nap 2-4pm, bed by 9pm. Oh, and I will have a solo exhibition at the 29 Palms Art Gallery next year, so, yay! Random photos below: blooming smoke tree on morning hike storage shed on barn, in progress property dragged for trash and underbrush my neighbor stopped by with his new creatures gifts of plants from a local Interview about Mexican Residency: Q: Ted and Anna, tell us where you are. Ted: We are in Michoacan at an artist residency called Guapamacataro Center for Art and Ecology. Q: What kind of environment is it? Where are you staying and working? Ted: It’s like being on the Ponderosa about 100 years ago. We stay and work in a big hacienda, parts of which were built in the 1750s. There are five residents here for three weeks, and we each have our own studio to work in. It’s very rural, with cows, horses and livestock all around us. Anna: And a very cute litter of puppies. Q: Did you know how you were going to use your time before you got to Mexico? How did you prepare? Ted: I had no idea what I was going to do. I brought lots of different supplies to draw and paint with. I bought fabric in the town about 10 miles away and am now making a large painting about village life. Anna: I came prepared with a project, because I’m the planning type. I’m continuing a painting series based on endangered animals called “Terrariums,” and am concentrating on the jaguar, which no longer exists in California. The last week I painted a huge mural on the living room wall! Q: How is this residency affecting your work? Ted: I’m not used to being in an agrarian environment. I notice all the patterns in the fields, the tile roofs, the traditional fabrics people wear here. I realized I wanted to focus on the view from my studio window, looking out on a two room school house and dirt road, where everyone passes by. I’m trying to show the life of the village. There’s a whole tradition in Mexico of illustrating a lot of activity in one big painting or mural, and that’s also influenced me. Anna: The colors, of course, are incredible here, oranges and greens and fantastic stormy skies. I generally paint like a crazy person, without editing, and later I’ll figure out if anything is worth saving. It was interesting that by week three I was finally doing works that were affected by the actually hacienda (the mural, and a series of small paintings with Ted)--it took that long to get out of my normal routine. Q: Anything you’d like to add anything else about being on a residency in a foreign country? Ted: You have to be ready for anything, because you don’t know how being away from your normal studio practice will affect you. Anna: We also like to take short trips away from the residency for breaks, because spending all day working with no distractions is draining. Local small museums and cultural centers are inspiring. Q: Where your next spot? Ted and Anna: We’re hoping to go to China!  Sorry to have gone dark for so long... Ted and I are at a residency in rural Mexico, and internet is not part of the deal. Learning a lot about how this one works, and will post pictures and what we're doing when we return.
We've got friends and neighbors looking after the Dairy, plants and cat. Hasta luego!  The exterior of the farmhouse still looks pretty bad. Stacks of trash are gone but the stucco and trim is worn and battered by the brutal sun and wind. We're patching holes and cleaning out planters. Eventually we'll need to change out the windows for double paned ones, so must wait on replacing trim. And... we have a new (used) swamp cooler that works! Because of the strange layout of the house we couldn't figure a better place to install it, such as the roof. Function has to trump looks in this case. At first I didn't understand why so many desert property owners obsessively scrape the ground around their houses, getting rid of anything that grows. Now I do: fire and critters. We still haven't seen a snake, but if you pick up wood, carpet, or trash that's been on the ground a while, there's likely a scorpion underneath. Black widows love nooks and crannies. So we are now appreciators of the clean earth aesthetic. Some color ideas...   Several weeks later, shot on a monsoon afternoon:   We have planted new trees in the past year: a desert willow (blooming above), a palo verde, a mesquite, a pomegranate, and another olive. Will we live long enough to reap the shade? Oh and it’s supposed to rain again in 29 tomorrow. Crazy.   Staining the new shutters to match the old. I've used dozens of studios in my career. I like to work outside my living space for multiple reasons, including • as a woman, I need to appear more professional • my home turf is distracting • I want to be able to leave projects in process/a mess • I enjoy bringing people into a studio that has a certain "mystique" • I need storage, lots of storage I'm thinking about which studios I've loved... a pre-famine stone hut in Ireland, with a glass ceiling an attic in a French chateau above a forest my large office studio at a Turkish university the Barrio Logan studio I shared with Daphne Hill (even though it leaked, had termites, and the floor sloped). I miss that damn studio now, having moved into a garage space, which is perfectly serviceable, but has no poetry.  Irish residency, in County Kerry  French residency, outside Abbeville  Barrio Logan Studio, San Diego Which brings me to our Desert Dairy barn, built in 1930. When we bought the place it was filled with and surrounded by junk and trash, it hosted a large beehive on an inside wall, and it had a roof basically blown to bits. Our construction crews have had to stop repairs for weeks because of high winds. But finally the place is almost ready, and I'm the type of person who doesn't need things to be perfect before beginning to work in a space. I can already tell, it's special. The natural light and airflow can be adjusted easily by opening and closing shutters on both east and west sides. The floor is solid concrete so can't be damaged. It's so quiet. We have only one working outlet, so no lights there yet, and you have to walk to the oasis for water, but that's ok. We can make BIG work, and stand back from it, and take sky and mountain gazing breaks. I don't know how other artists will react, but I'm definitely inspired.  New old door, before installation. You can see where the beehive was removed.  New shutters from outside. 
 T and I watching the moonrise on the dune. Although I'm not thrilled with the offroading that goes on, the paths do make it easier to walk. Our neighbor has a collection of RVs going on. Sigh.  Even though we had a mini heat wave in April, with temps reaching 100, I was determined to see what working in the barn would be like. Every new studio takes getting used to: how the light changes, how air flows, where to paint, where to store supplies. I dragged some metal into the barn and began to paint helicopters, my new fascination. I'm realizing they are vaguely religious, like "Ascensions," especially when people are dangling from cables below the hulking bodies. It's strange that again I'm living near a military base (as I do in San Diego). Anyway, we'll see what develops.
I've signed up for the Hwy 62 Art Tours in October, so the public will be invited to the barn. Good to have a deadline to get it in shape, with roof, new/old shutters that lock, and floor repaired. Have to find some old doors now. The textures and worn surfaces out there are really beautiful. Hope you'll come out in October, dear Reader. Although I'm not making any major work in the desert yet, have been doing small gouache paintings in the evenings of rocks from the yard. The sketchbook is old, and has lots of miscellaneous stuff it in, including drawings and paintings from when my son was young. Just for fun and relaxation.  We invested in the high desert just about a year ago. Happy Anniversary, Desert Dairy! The property is gradually turning the corner from complete wreck to decency. On arrival we no longer confront lists of screaming problems--we can start to think about making art, about enjoying nature. Almost.
When I look back on the photos from a year ago, the ground is bare. Now it's covered with wild grasses, the last of the wildflowers, and brambles. There are lots of critters, it's a whole different place. I bought a desert willow (tried to graft a few, but they kept dying), and an ocotillo (have wanted one since I was a kid!). Digging the holes to plant them, caterpillars kept falling in. They are White Lined Sphinxes, the fairies of the moth world. There's going to be a swarm of them. Our neighbor trimmed our poor butchered tamarisks so they actually look like trees again. Now I can look out from the house into the distance through the branches, and it feels like floating, yellow daisies glowing in the distance. The scary thing is locals starting to talk about fire danger, because usually there's nothing to burn here. I wonder if this year is a fluke, all the rain. Early in the 20th century there was a decade of wet weather, prompting desert homestead settlement from eastern farmers who were fooled. Some crazy family built our dairy, complete with barn, basement, outhouse and cool houses. And then the dream was devastated with the return of desert weather, leaving failed farms and abandoned shacks across the Morongo Basin. The Desert Dairy's second artist retreat invited artists who have creative young adult/teens to come and make work together. Thank you to everyone who participated! It was a full weekend...  Mask making workshop with EVA foam.  Encaustic workshop outside on the patio.  Gold leafing workshop.  We did a field trip to the Yucca Arts Center and the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Museum.
It was doughy inside but the crust was amazing. And gone instantly.   The flowers on our property are not spectacular, just the occasional yellow daisy. We are hoping there's more to come. The purple verbena that my gorgeous pup is standing in is about a mile from us. This area looks more like Coachella, and the elevation is pretty low here--eastern 29 and Wonder Valley are different than Joshua Tree, for sure (ie no Joshua Trees).  Our neighbor trimmed the seven pitiful Tamarisk trees that surround the farmhouse. They had been badly hacked by the previous owners, and will hopefully grow back in better shape. Now we can see the view through the trees. The invasive mustard in the photo has to be pulled. We are working on it, but it probably covers 3 acres of our property. With rain comes weeds, sigh.  This funny photo was taken on the 62 West in Joshua Tree (on our way to gallery openings, which seem to happen most Saturdays, it's great!). The real mountains are Big Bear. The drive up from San Diego is so beautiful right now. I go through Winchester, which currently looks like Ireland, and the outskirts of Hemet. Orange poppies coat the creases in the mountains all along the route.
We have never posted pics of the dune on this blog, even though it's an important and beautiful part of our property, and we walk on it every time we are out. Our property used to be Shortz Lake, which is why water is close to the surface and the dune formed. The lakebed also explains how this area could have supported a dairy in the 1930s. Here's a tour, with plants because of the rains. Click on each photo for a description. We are spending the first year with the Desert Dairy healing it, trying to understand the land and the town, experiencing the crazy weather, and enjoying most of each day we are here (yes, there are moments of despair, too). We are not making much art yet, but that will change when the barn is in better shape. We are also testing the idea of running a residency by inviting groups of friends/guinea pigs out for retreats, in which we organize artist workshops, cook together, and do some art tourism. Our first retreat was in January, with members of the Feminist Image Group, an artist support group I founded ten years ago in San Diego. Although we have about 60 members now, about eight hardy souls agreed to come out to 29 Palms to celebrate our anniversary, and the fact that I'm passing on the leadership reins to others.
The original Google Maps image of the Dairy, resplendent as a functioning dump, with multiple RVs.  Updated image... hell yeah. 
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. |
Archives
May 2022
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. |
RSS Feed