Most Manhattan gallery-goers don’t know the names Jimmy Swinnerton or John Hilton; they can’t tell a smoketree from a cholla. While desert art is expanding its geographic appeal, it hasn’t reached the east coast yet. That transcontinental link may finally…
Long Beach photographer Michael E. Gordon is a champion of overlooked deserts, preferring the quiet corners of the Mojave to the more obvious drama of places like the Grand Canyon. Now he takes on a similarly ignored and yet most…
Born too late to study with Sam Hyde Harris or Edgar Payne? Now you have another chance to learn from a traditional California master, when Eric Merrell teaches a painting workshop in Joshua Tree Sept. 19-23, 2011. Limited to just…
Captain Beefheart was a rock-n-roll wildman, too avant garde—if that’s possible–for the likes of his friend Frank Zappa. But Don Van Vliet (his real name), who died on December 17, 2010, was also a visionary painter of the desert. Van…
Kevin Wong, a photographer and adventurer based in Joshua Tree, is embarking on a project to document lives lived along the Mother Road (Route 66) in the remote desert towns of the Mojave Desert. While Route 66 gets a lot…
Ed. Update–We are sorry to report that Katherine McKay died of cancer, in Richmond, Calif., on October 12, 2011. Editor’s Note—We’ve been telling you about the early desert painters; with this essay by Katherine McKay we shift into the…
