When the City of Indian Wells bulldozed Carl Bray’s home and gallery in 2010, an epic David versus Goliath story ended. The City had tried to evict Bray for decades because his hand-built home on Hwy 111 clashed with their…
Larry Hughes’ new book Rings of Fire tells the story of a little-known mining camp that doubled as an art camp during WWII. The calcite crystals mined there were used to make gunsights for ships and aircraft. At the center…
Just after midnight on January 1st, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson pressed a telegraph button in Washington D.C.; the signal shot across the country to launch the start of the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego. In the harbor, the USS San…
On the final night of the Joshua Tree spacecraft convention in 1958, Hollywood stuntmen tumbled seven stories off the face of Giant Rock. Columba Krebs waited in the wings while organizer George Van Tassel’s daughters performed songs taught to them…
The evicted residents of the Kumeyaay village raced to assemble a goat corral and government-issued tents before the rains came. Trunks, boxes, stoves, manos and bedding were scattered around the camp. A frail Easterner sat nearby making sketches of the…
Editor’s note: This article by Steven Carlson suggests an entirely new school of desert art. While we’ve deemed the Coachella Valley painters the Smoketree School, Effie Anderson Smith (Steven’s great-great aunt) devoted much of her work to the misunderstood yucca.…
