If Cathedral City was an unlikely place to nurture groundbreaking artists like Agnes Pelton, Virginia City, Nevada, is even more unlikely. Twenty-six miles south of Reno, the frontier boomtown rests on a mountainside at 6,200 feet. It’s riddled with abandoned…
Category: Desert Artists
Headstone for a Hero: The Quest to Mark Susie Keef Smith’s Grave
Postcards from Mecca is a hero’s journey. Pioneer photographer Susie Keef Smith triumphed over heat, disability and roadless wilderness to document the 1920s desert east of the Salton Sea. But every heroic tale requires a villain. For Susie, it was…
Out of the Blue! George Frederick Gleich’s 1924 “Sketches from Life and Nature”
Never underestimate the benefits of publishing on the California Desert Art website! A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of having my article, “Smoke Tree George: The Fabled Life and Times of George Frederick Gleich,” posted, and, over…
Michael Moore, Carl Chew, Cholla Chairs, Triassic Quilts and More
Inspired by the recent California Desert Art article on Lynda Keeler’s maps, Michael Moore sent some of his own “imaginary topographics”. For decades, the widely exhibited artist has been exploring and mapping the northern Great Basin Desert. He grew up…
Weshoyot Alvitre Responds to “INDIANLAND” Installation
Weshoyot Alvitre is a Tongva and Scottish Comic Book artist and illustrator. Her piece TONGVALAND was created in 2019. This op-ed is written in response to the Desert X exhibition in Palm Springs, California, and installation of large oversized “INDIANLAND”…
Hatchetman: The Desert Exile of Harry Bennett
Harry Bennett had been watching his back trail most of his life, but finally–atop a winding driveway on a high knoll in Desert Hot Springs–he could rest. He picked up his binoculars and scoped his kingdom. The long views in…
The Way Home: Lynda Keeler’s Neighborhood Maps
Lynda Keeler had been trying out different styles—figurative painting, hard edge—but nothing felt authentic. Contemplating her bedrock truths, she came up with this: I walk. I look. The artist walks miles each day through every neighborhood she’s ever lived in,…
Deep Desert: Kevin Key Descends 765 Feet Beneath the Surface
Kevin Key grew up in the conformity of a San Diego suburb with a vigilant HOA. Naturally, as a young man he was drawn to the desert to the east where there were no rules and you could find old,…
Allan McCollum: Mt. Signal and its Sand Spikes
New York artist Allan McCollum was having a run of bad luck. He’d been stiffed by a dealer, lost his studio and racked up his credit cards. Fed up with the commerce of art, he put everything in storage and…
Echoes of the San Andreas: A New Book from Jane Culp
During this sad summer of 2020, I’ve often looked south from my Palm Springs home, past the new burn at Araby, orienting myself by the twin horns of Toro Peak. Up there is the wild Anza country. To get to…