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.…
On a November day in 1961, Emma Lou Davis was returning home from an archaeology dig in her usual grunge attire: Shorts, heavy boots and work shirt. Her sweat-sculpted hair stuck out in all directions, her fingernails were grimy, face…
It seems the desert herself has elected an ambassador and sent her out into the world to represent us. Sharon Ellis–who works quietly in Yucca Valley–has a show, New Works on Paper, at the Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles through October…
Each day when she finished her shift at the Shadow Mountain Club in Palm Desert, Evelyn Chevoor swung by the base of the mountain where Fred Chisnall was painting beside the panel truck that doubled as his home. Chisnall was…
