Photo Essay: An Outdoor Desert Crawl of Outsider Art

It's been years since I've attended Artwalk in Downtown LA. It's always felt like too many people... and not enough art.



But last weekend, I went to the Hwy 62 Art Tours in the high desert communities surrounding Joshua Tree for the second time.



And I think I'll keep going back.



This year my first stop was the tile house of Wonder Valley...



...a "mosaic retreat" crafted out of Mexican tile, fused glass, and found objects by ceramicist and sculptor Perry Hoffman.



The two-bedroom house first became an art project in the year 2000 and was expanded in 2011...



...but Hoffman isn't done with it yet.



It's still a work in progress.



Though I would challenge anyone to find a blank space that needs to be covered.



And if he does cover it all, from floor to ceiling, inside and out...



...won't he just build another addition?



My second stop was The Glass Outhouse Art Gallery, which is entering its 10th season of art...



...and yet I'd only just heard about it this year.



The site used to be a pistol range—but when the owner died, his widow turned it into a not-for-profit art space.



At first just a gallery to showcase her own work and the oddball work of her friends who didn't fit in the traditional "desert landscape" category that most other galleries were looking to fill...



...it's expanded into a full-fledged outdoor art environment...



...with a sculpture garden and solar-lit trails out front...



...as well as a few cautionary tales (like don't get caught nude sunbathing).



This sculpture garden also features found objects galore...



...and that's probably because you can find a lot of stuff out in the desert.



You can get lost in the whimsy and wild.



You can awaken a greater sense of self.



And you can make your life whatever you want it to be.



As if the desert weren't surreal enough on its own, I made my last stop the Dream Wanderer, a roving virtual reality experience that's set up camp in Landers.



I boarded the bus (now parked to stay, at least for a while),  strapped on the VR headset, and was taken away to Lily Dale, New York, a town founded in 1879 for spiritualists...



...where dozens of registered mediums (many who are called "Reverend") reside and offer their services of contacting the other side. Some bend spoons. Others heal with their hands.

But during each two-and-a-half-minute segment of the virtual reality show (replete with vibrating chest plate), I enjoyed my time on the fringe.

I walked through a forest, and I floated on a glass lake.

I wondered whether the dreams I've had are simply memories of things that happened while I was asleep.

I pondered what connects me—the essence of me—to my corporeal form and to this world I currently live in.

But in the end, I hoped that the dead aren't really still among us... and that I won't stick around after I die.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: Noah's Art
Is It Art, Or Is It the Desert?
Photo Essay: The High Desert's Crystal Cave

A Chance to Talk About My Los Angeles (At Our/Los Angeles Distillery)

I'm delighted to have visited the Our/Los Angeles distillery to represent Atlas Obscura and Avoiding Regret and muse about LA and my "last day on Earth" bucket list.

Topics covered include the Bob Baker Marionette Theatre, Museum of Neon Art, Mount Lowe Incline Railway, the LA Pigeon Club and Pageant of Pigeons, and a few other of what I consider to be LA's greatest hits.

To listen, click the arrow button on the player below or the big image at the top, or click here.

Trick or Treat, Insect Edition

I'd met some movie-star animals before, but not like these.



These were celebrity arachnids and arthropods—and what better time would there be to meet them than two weekends before Halloween?



We were introduced to these insects of the big and small screen by animal handler and horror movie actress Diana Terranova...



...who's probably more comfortable with a scorpion perched on her mouth than without.



I went for the mantis instead, and kept it away from my face.



That emboldened me to take a tomato hornworm in my hand, which seemed far less sinister than the hawk moth it would eventually turn into.



And although Diana tried to convince us that the orb-weaver spider would spin a web just like Charlotte's...



...I let someone else see if they could coax a silky spiral out of the spider's butt.

Happy Halloween!

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Pinning It Down
Photo Essay: Hollywood's Wildest Stars
Stand Like a Tree, and They Will Climb

Photo Essay: Glimpses of Chicago, Among the High Rises and High Society

When I'd visited Chicago before, I didn't feel a sense of urgency.



After all, I was living on the East Coast with no intention on leaving, and I figured I'd have plenty of opportunity to return (either professionally or personally).



But this time in Chicago, 10 years later and living on the West Coast, I was on a mission: I needed to see as much of Chicago as I could, just in case I never got back there again.



I took a 7 a.m. flight out of LAX so I would arrive in Chicagoland early enough to get a deep dish pizza lunch before riding the ferris wheel at Navy Pier, a vestige from Chicago circa 1916 and one of the top amusements in the Midwest (though the wheel itself is a replacement, only two or three years old).



I booked a hotel that was a 10-minute walk away from my conference (not a big deal, unless it's 80 degrees, humid, and raining, which it was) so I could stay in the Jazz Age-era high-rise landmark, the Allerton.



Every morning, I walked past the Wrigley Building and the Tribune building, unsure how to get into either. I lamented at the scaffolded, crumbling facade of the former home of Chicago's city newspaper, which vacated the premises earlier this year after 93 years in the neo-Gothic tower.



And after about a day or so, the towers started closing in on me, just as they had after 14 years living in various New York City boroughs and working in Manhattan.



Even the comparatively petite Water Tower complex, one of the sole survivors of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, felt like a fortress of limestone and shadows.



When I would look up from the streets and sidewalks of Chicago, I'd get tired of seeing stone and brick and terra cotta and spires and elevated train tracks instead of the mountains and radio towers of LA.



So, I brought my adventures inside, to see what the interiors of Chicago had to offer, while other tourists craned their necks outside.



At the Marquette Building, I crossed under the bronze reliefs and past the sculpted kickplates of the rotating door...



...and under the bronze sculpture of Father Jacques Marquette, the Jesuit missionary who mapped the Mississippi River Valley in the 17th century...



...to behold the glittering glass mosaics that tell the story of Marquette's exploration and "discovery" of the Chicago River...



...as depicted by Louis Comfort Tiffany, who also used mother of pearl and semiprecious stones in addition to Tiffany glass.



Built in 1895, the Marquette Building was designed in the Chicago School style by Chicago's now oldest architectural firm, Holabird and Root, also of Chicago Temple and Palmer House fame. Between the three landmarks, I think I've gotten a pretty good indication of what Chicago architecture is like.



But no architecturally-minded visit to Chicago would be complete without gazing up at one of the many stained glass ceiling domes that can be found there.



During my trip, I got to see two of them: the Giannini and Hilgart Studios creation of 1901 at the former Nickerson Mansion, now the Driehaus Museum...



...and the Healy and Millet dome at the former Chicago Public Library, now the Chicago Cultural Center.



It wasn't until I got home that I realized that none of the glass domes I'd seen were by Tiffany—one of those could be found elsewhere in the Chicago Cultural Center.



And I'd missed the mosaic dome in the former Marshall Field's department store (now Macy's) on State Street, though I'd walked by so many times before.

So, while I'd hoped to be done with Chicago, there are still a few things I missed, and there are a few more things I discovered as a result of my return.

But my biggest and best takeaway from this last visit is that I don't want to live in any skyscraper city anymore, though perhaps it's nice to visit for a taste of the architecture and decorative arts.

Just a day or two into my trip, I couldn't wait to get home—and by home, I meant LA.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: Chicago's Chapel in the Sky (Or, The World's Tallest Church Building)
Pilgrimage to the Birthplace of the Brownie, Upon Its 125th Anniversary
Photo Essay: A Tale of Two Towers in Chicago
Photo Essay: Feast Your Eyes on Chagall's Monumental Mosaic