My fascination with Norton Allen goes back to a hot day 15 years ago when I brought home a cardboard box of old Desert Magazines. The magazine, published from 1937 to 1985, offered an alternative to the Palm Springs of…
When a fox named Fresno encounters three border-crossing foxes from Mexico, they all wind up partying at a palm oasis–in a series of enchanting illustrations by British-born artist Anthony W. Parr. “A fox knows no borders, just how to have…
Art and Theosophy at Lomaland You don’t have to labor through Helena Blavatsky’s tomes to get a taste for Theosophy, an esoteric belief system that inspired Agnes Pelton and so many others. The teachings are notoriously opaque to modern minds,…
I’m no longer surprised when I hear about a hot Southwestern artist and then find he or she had ties to the Coachella Valley. In fact, I’ve come to expect those connections. The newest discovery is Henry Cady Wells, a…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
