California Desert Artists Hardcover – October 18, 2024

The Mojave Hi-desert communities of Southern California include Morongo Valley, Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, Landers, 29 Palms and the villages in-between. These high desert communities are settled by unforgettable people. Many are artists. A careful observation of this art, and the artists, of the California Desert is warranted.Creative people are instinctively drawn to the desert’s seductive mix of affordability, freedom, quiet and a connection to the earth’s natural rhythms. The days can be windy and the summers are hot. But the nights are always mild, and the night sky is a rich blanket of stars.In the 1930’s Agnes Pelton, the celebrated symbolist painter, settled in Cathedral City. She would quietly create a transcendent body of work in her simple desert cabin. Noah Purifoy spent the last 15 years of his life living and working in Joshua Tree, leaving behind a rich legacy at the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Museum of Assemblage Sculpture. Architect Lloyd Wright (Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr.) spent a de- cade in the mid-20 th Century building an important collection of organic modernist structures at the historic Joshua Tree Retreat Center.Contemporary desert artists are working in varied media: film, word, sculpture, painting, drawing, textile, ceramics, metal, wood, concrete, natural fibers, found ob- jects, trash, plastic, resin, plaster and more. Performance art, filmed art events, art gatherings, prose and poetry readings, music, dance and visual art are all woven together naturally. Local desert galleries and arts non-profits, artist residency pro- grams and local benefactors all work to support local artists. The annual Highway 62 Art Tours, held every year in October, is the second largest open-studio art tour in California. It is only surpassed by San Francisco in terms of the total number of participating artists.As a writer, curator and documentary film maker - I have spent the last twenty-five years telling the varied stories of historic and contemporary California artists and makers. For the last three years, I have served as Arts Writer for the Joshua Tree Voice. In that time, we have published over 30 articles on local artists for the maga- zine. The following essays are just a small snapshot of the wider artistic community thriving here in the high desert of Southern California.Featuring the following artists:- Ben Allanoff: Collaborating with Nature- Claudia Bucher: Soothsayer- Simi Dabah: 50 Years in the Desert- Sonya Krastman: Desert Painter- Philip Miller: Metal Master- Eric Nash: Western Lust- James O'Keefe: Desert Hard-Edge Painter- Noah Purifoy: Desert Elder- Cybele Rowe: The Space Between- Svetlana Shigroff: A Textile Mythology- Joanna Szachowska: The Desert is my Soul Lab- Kelly Witmer: Sculptural Art in Metal, Glass, Paint and Ceramic- Larry White: High Desert Maker Read more