With Desert X returning to the Valley in 2019, all eyes will be on installations scaled to Instagram. In the shift to Insta-art, those who work in the enduring tradition of 20th Century Impressionist painters are easily overlooked. One such…
Category: Museum Exhibits
Magic Bus, Mutant Cactus, Desert Light Gallery and More
Everyone’s talking about the faceless babies in Palm Springs, giant sculptures created by Czech artist David Cerny. Those who prefer their art organically grown are buzzing about a bullet-riddled homeless school bus that slumbered along the Mojave Road for at…
Neal Lucas Hitch, Agnes Pelton Exhibition, Eric Merrell’s Plein Air Poem and more
If you’re looking for a land art destination now that the Desert X Mirror House is being dismantled, I suggest taking a drive south past the Salton Sea to see Neal Lucas Hitch‘s straw bale observatory. The lunar viewing pod…
Indio Water Tower, Banning Art Scene, Samuel DeWalt Arner, Made in the Mojave and More
The Desert X team may want to look to Indio for an example of site-specific art firmly rooted in the desert soil. You start with a local ingredient, in this case a 95-year-old water tower that stood at the corner…
Lost Desert Artists, Erin Hanson’s Painted Parks, Bill Ogden, Hilbert Museum and More
One of the premier Impressionist painters in the US in the early 1900s, Julian Itter was also a Mojave desert artist and gold miner. Yet none of his desert paintings have been found. Adrienne Sadlo, a student at Eastern Washington…
New Sven-Ska Photos, Helen Lundeberg, Agnes Martin, William Bartko and more
Two major retrospectives of women who drew inspiration from the desert are on view currently in Southern California. Agnes Martin came to New Mexico in the late 1960s and lived alone in an adobe hut on a mesa. The Los…
A Quartzsite Christmas, Visionary Bill Ogden, Tahquitz Discovery and More
Artist and archaeologist Jim Toenjes sends holiday greetings “from way out Quartzsite way”. The former Palm Springs resident is now a nomadic artist, traveling the deserts (with winters in Washington state) in a camper with his paints and his dog,…
Desert Americana, Western Abstraction, Coyote Fur and Rams’ Horns
The Cathedral City Historical Society hosts the master of desert Americana, Ron Backer, at a luncheon Thursday, November 5, 2015. Backer, a transplant from South Dakota, zones in on a neighborhood and soon unearths stories even the locals don’t know;…
Billie’s Taxi, Tribute to Edan Hughes, Adobe Dweller Frances Nugent and More
Fans of Cathedral City artist Agnes Pelton have long awaited the book by the City’s first mayor–and a friend to the early artists–Robert Hillery. At last Cathedral City: the Early Years 1925 to 1981 is in print. You can meet…
Joshua Trees in The OC, Agnes’ Spirit Guide, New Morongo Gallery and More
In the spirit of the early desert painters, Jim Trolinger and a band of talented friends are taking on the California deserts one by one. They’ve twice journeyed to Death Valley, and they descended on Joshua Tree in March. You…