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Giant Rock attracts and inspires in scale, stories and a consistent need for attention through stewardship. Naturally, artists follow the magnetism of the site and some of these works are curated in Voices from the Vortex, an online exhibit created to accompany the annual #storiesandstewardship clean up for #nationalpubliclandsday 2021 on September 25th.
Featuring installation, performance, poetry, photography and video by artists from near and far, the exhibit includes:
Melissa Agate, Cynthia Anderson, Jeff Frost, Bettina Hubby, Jessica King and Michaela Strumberger
curated by Karyl Newman.
One of many alluvial fans found in the Mojave, Big Rock Creek carries soil and sediment from the San Gabriel Mountains and waste dumped along this desert route north into the Antelope Valley in powerful flash floods. Most of the time Big Rock Wash is a deep, dry, wide trace of these short dangerous events. Located in Llano, CA the arid ephemeral creek is tied to the history of Llano del Rio, a socialist utopian experiment just east of the procurement site from 1914-1917.
Part of the #wastewunderkammer, the Alluvial Albums contain family memories, snapshots, polaroids and ephemera, each altered by sand and water then baked in the searing sun.
The online project shares the current state of the photo collection, research into content and history of the area. Visitors may hike out to the wash and perhaps find an experience or project souvenir. Bring a bag to collect trash or treasures.
Alluvial Albums is part of Maiden LA 2020, an inclusive network of art related happenings throughout Los Angeles County taking place September 1-20. Despite the pandemic, over 75 Los Angeles artists, collectives, curators, and organizations have delivered an exciting array of projects both live and online, interactive and socially distanced. For the complete calendar of events visit the Maiden LA website where you can search for projects based on neighborhood, venue information or project type. There is also a comprehensive map and downloadable PDF.
Today is #worldufoday2020 grab a hand screened cotton ringer T-shirt based on 1950s or 1970s vintage designs worn at George Van Tassel’s UFO conventions at #giantrock. Use code worldufoday for a 15% discount at https://positionalprojects.bigcartel.com/
Part of proceeds will help with Giant Rock clean-ups and volunteer activities.
Offer ends Sunday, July 5 at 8pm.
As the West Coast organizer for Brick x Brick I invited new and former Bricksters to build a wall against misogyny at City Hall.
For the past two years the West Coast Bricksters made actions at Trump’s golf course in Palos Verdes, but many in our group wanted to take the action to the Women’s March in downtown Los Angeles.
We found a spot and began our silent action inspiring some tears, some thumbs up and some applause from those who stopped to read our wall.
For the 5th annual fall clean up, working with the Bureau of Land Management’s Barstow office, the Mojave Desert Land Trust, the Landers Community Association and this year a new partner, High Desert Keepers, I organize an opportunity for community members from around the Morongo Basin to help steward the infamous site while I share my research and stories relayed by oral history interviewees.
This year we had 50 volunteers, both young and old. Each received a day pass for free National Park access, a complimentary National Public Lands Day T-Shirt and lunch donated and delivered by Michael at the $5 Pizza Place.
Rachael Buettell at Black Luck Vintage in Yucca Valley graciously hosted a free silkscreening workshop featuring graphics I recreated based on actual designs found in my research from 1957 and the early 70’s UFO Conventions led by George Van Tassel. Attendees choose a screen and some applied both designs on the front and back of their t-shirts.
The eventbrite tickets to reserve a spot went quickly. You can score your own shirt here!
From the Exhibit Guide:
SELECTIONS FROM THE WASTE WUNDERKAMMER – STATION ELEVEN EDITION
Welcome to the non-fiction of our human enterprise. This is a portion of a ‘cabinet of curiosities’, where each piece has been found in our desert, collected from 2013 to the present, a small representation of residue languishing in our fragile arid eco-system.
These selections are inspired by author Emily St. John Mandel’s character of Clark in Station Eleven where his museum of civilization in the airport on Concourse C is both an homage to his lost love and a material culture education for the younger survivors.
— Karyl Newman
About the Exhibition: Concourse C
In the spirit of community, assemblage art, and curio, Yucca Valley Visual and Performing Arts Center presents Concourse C. Inspired by the book Station Eleven and its post pandemic genesis of an airport community, the exhibition explores the repurposing of discarded waste into potential functioning shelter and as an archive of human enterprise.
Cathy Allen’s assemblage structure will be on view alongside selections from Karyl Newman’s Waste Wunderkammer collection of objects found lingering in the desert. The collection parallel’s Station Eleven’s Museum of Civilization, a display of extinct technology housed in the gift shop of Concourse C.
— NEA Big Read Morongo Basin
So glad friends and grant partners at the BLM-Barstow office called to see if we could bring the community together again for National Public Lands Day on Saturday, October 6th from 8:00AM – 12:00PM.
Join us! I have also invited a few of our expert collaborators to share their ongoing research as part of Our Giant Rock – A Community Touchstone in the Mojave, which was awarded a California Humanities Project Grant in December 2017. This #storiesandstewardship event is part of the grant program with the Hi-Desert Nature Museum in advance of our digital exhibit opening in Fall of 2019. We are joined again by the Mojave Desert Land Trust and the Landers Community Association and of course my creative reuse mapping project Blightsites. We will provide water, the amazing tool trailer, safety and conservation information and complimentary 2018 NPLD t-shirts!
Sign up here with MDLT or just show up.
Please join is to learn more about our cultural heritage and meet other volunteers who share an appreciation of our precious public lands at this important Mojave boulder!
So pleased to be invited by Cathy Allen to share my placekeeping pop-up projects at the annual Arts Connection – The Arts Council of San Bernardino Conference. Join us Saturday, September 29th.
Alternative Methodology for Creative Expression – led by Cathy Allen from 3:00 – 4:15
The session features a panel of creative professionals committed to art forms such as social practice, experimental sound, performance, spoken word and pop-up works. Those presenting will discuss inspiration sources, processes, challenges, and their personal fulfillment from engaging in alternative methodologies.
The event takes place all day with lots of other panels and wonderful before and after activities for an additional cost. Here is the link to register.