29Palms - Thursday, July 02, 2009

Unprepossessing from the outside, very low key

Take a break day.

First morning in the desert.

Newt had air conditioning people over, and was tied up till well past noon with them. Cathy had to go to Palm Springs, to the museum, to work on her upcoming project that will be showing over there.

Desert tortoise, living large

Jimbo got his camera, while the light was still good, early, but not too early, and went ballistic with it, getting shots of art and environment in, on, and around, everything out here. I tried to pick the best shots after I was done, and damn near duplicated the original list of jpg’s. I suppose if you want a better picture, you bring a better subject to photograph, eh?

Bonzo, talking a stroll through the morning creosote. I suppose I may as well stop and take the time, right here, to advise you that you're going to be seeing a lot of shots of this desert floor, this creosote, and those mountains in the background. At first glance, and for those with coarse sensibilities, this may seem redundant, tedious, and unnecessary. But no, that's not how it works at all. This whole set and setting is in constant, very subtile flux. It stays the same, but it's always changing, and it's never the same. In certain ways, it's very much like the ocean. Some people look at the sea, and it looks the same to them all the time. Other people look at the sea, and it's ever-changing, never the same thing. Does that make sense? Perhaps, for some of you, and perhaps not for others. I'll not worry about such trivialities, and shall instead simply place the images on the page, to be clicked or ignored as whim or desire dictate.

An artist's lode of raw material, weathering in the sun.		Is this junk? Is this scene? Is this art? Is this anything?

Sprinkled liberally amongst the shots of the art, are shots of the surround in which the art is incubated and steeped. Sometimes the line between art and environment becomes a little blurry, and sometimes it disappears altogether.

Newt and Cathy’s work shares commonalities, although each is quite distinct from the other.

Both are very good.

Hard to describe. It works like good art should, and has power to set you thinking, oftentimes in very tangent directions you might not have ever thought to take, had you not considered the object you chanced to observe. I find myself bathing in it out here, and the sensation is a very pleasurable one.

Think I’ll let the camera do most of the talking this time.

Draw your own conclusions.