THE RESIDENCY:
High Desert Test Sites, June 2024, Joshua Tree, California, USA

PROJECT TITLE:
SENTINEL
The third installation of an eco-triptych about water in the desert.

THE QUESTION:
Was the desert once a watery, navigable place?

THE UNDERPINNINGS:
Transience underpins my practice. Metaphors for transience in my work are deserts, rivers, and oceans and space— where time isn’t linear due to the uncertainty these spaces hold. In each environment, a sense of renewal and redirection is embraced and redefinition is the ultimate and unavoidable outcome.

The Eco-Triptych title:
MANIFEST

The first piece of the eco-triptych was installed in the desert in June 2023, titled THE DESERT IS A RIVER, A RIVER IS A METAPHOR. You can see these works on my recent work section

I proposed part two of this eco-triptych, titled DISPATCH to High Desert Test Sites (HDTS) as a residency project in June, and was accepted for a self-directed resident. But as luck would have it, I came to the desert in February and installed DISPATCH in on a crag in the Joshua Tree National Park at that time. I visited the HDTS studios—which is truly stunning space, and spoke to the staff about some ideas for June. I began to consider the third piece to the teco-riptych for my residency in June.

I arrived at HDTS June 10th with my project about 90% realized. I had been working on it at home for 3 months, and it went through many manifestations before it came to its final state. I was developing 8 body bags suggesting death at sea. But the more I worked with the shape and the material, I realized I wanted to suggest navigation and movement through a watery place.

I began looking through my Sicilian great-grandfather’s mariner’s book of sea and channels crossings from the mid-1800s, and was struck by the idea of channel markers—a navigation system for seafaring folk. Channel markers have signs on them to caution sailors of dangerous areas as they move through a pass. I adopted this idea as my residency project and created 8 standing ‘markers’ and began working on the aesthetic and technical aspects in my home studio in New York City. They were 72’”tall x 24” wide, freestanding, dyed-black burlap “markers” with navigation symbols on them. They are titled: SENTINEL.

The project was installed at three different times at two different locations. I found a dry lake bed for the first two installations, one in the early morning and one nearing twilight, when there were intense winds. The Sunfair Dry Lakebed is an expansive stretch of desert close to the park’s entrance. Mostly it’s used now as a camping site. motocross track and there’s a lot of guns being fired just the other side of the mountain range that frames it to the north-east. I’s the result of a failed attempt to create a man-made lake from earlier last century. The second place I installed the markers was in a dry desert wash, which is the watercourse for seasonal rains and floods, located behind the High Desert Test Sites compound.

THE RESIDENCY:
V4L Wild and Wonderful Artist Residency, August 2023, Harper’s Ferry, West VA, USA

PROJECT TITLE:
Drifters

THE QUESTION:
What lies between departure and arrival points–between boundaries? How do the experiences in these in-between spaces change us, blur us, and re-imagine us into something new?

THE UNDERPINNINGS:
This transience is the underpinning of my practice. My metaphors for transience in the natural world are deserts, rivers, trains, and plants following human patterns of movement and the things we leave behind. These represent the quandary of redirection, and ultimately, redefinition. In these liminal spaces, one navigates all important things in living which can be defined conceptually as migrations, statehood, gender, language, race, religion, relationships, or many other pathways where we find ourselves in-between.

THE PROPOSAL:
I proposed a broad project at V4L. Interventions in nature, sculptural work, weed and soil collection at installation sites with geolocation tags as well as videos with local oral histories about migrations to this place.

EXHIBIT A: LOST AND FOUND
I began on the 2nd of August. Heading directly for the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potamic Rivers, I collected cast-off railroad spikes, which had resided at the river’s edge for many years—in a transitory state. Upon their collection, they arrived at their destination. I gilded them with gold leaf and mounted them on black velvet for permanent exhibition in the Wayside Wondercabinet as a curiosity of transience in the natural world.

EXHIBIT B: INTERVENTIONS IN NATURE
Interventions took place at the (90 years defunct) Shenandoah Pulp Factory and the defunct Limestone Quarry. White fabric, 3’ wide by 50’ long, represents a pathway through time. There are several documented interventions in these locations.

EXHIBIT C: PAINTINGS
A surprise emerged during the process at V4L: paintings. Spending time walking through the woods, watching weeds literally grab onto the clothing of passersby made me understand the genius of their muscleless migratory behaviors. Something I noticed my entire life (and found rather annoying), in this context—was nothing short of awe-inspiring. 45 small paintings of weeds on burlap were the result—sewn one after the other to a jute rope—mimicking the procession of weeds alongside humans.

EXHIBIT D: WEED COLLECTION and ARCHIVING
Weeds at Installation and video sites collected with geolocation tags will describe the exploration this residency took in the region. A future project might include collaborations with local botanists to explore this aspect deeper.

EXHIBIT E: SOUND and VIDEO
The soundtrack for this region is trains. Freight trains run all day and night in a cortege steel and clamor, moving from their departure point to their destination in allegorical in-between-moments. The sound of trains passing close by is nothing short of crushing—and from afar, nothing short of lonesome. These crushing and lonesome effects are a direct reflection of how one feels when navigating difficult situations in our lives. Sound provides a visceral experience.

Two videos were compiled for Drifters. The Freight train passing through Harper’s Ferry and the shadows of people walking across the Shenandoah River walking bridge (from Maryland to West Virginia), cast onto the shoreline of the river. Oral histories of migrations to Harper’s Ferry will be used as a soundtrack to these videos.