Creatives in the desert: A guide to Reading the Landscape

Georgia O’Keefe’s groundbreaking depictions of the desert in the 1930s made the art world sit up and take notice of the potential of this landscape. Today, the desert is attracting a growing number of artists from all disciplines. So much so, that there’s even an annual conference in San Bernardino County devoted to harnessing that creative output.Mojave Desert Land Trust was one of the main contributors to the Arts Connection Annual Conference this weekend. Our executive director Danielle Segura brought the event to close with a challenge for artists to use their images, words, sound and movement to defend the desert.“Nature is our sustaining life force and artists more than anyone recognize and have the ability to identify with this landscape in a most unique way. Artists recognize themselves in this beautiful, fragile, volatile ecosystem,” she said in her closing remarks.Joshua Tree itself is home to acclaimed artists like Shari Elf (creator of the “World Famous Crochet Museum”), educational ventures such as Kim Stringfellow’s Mojave Project, curators like Sant Khalsa, creative spaces like Andrea Zittell’s High Desert Sites, and legacies like the Noah Purifoy Desert Museum.Daniell Cornell, the Donna and Cargill MacMillan Director of Art for the Palm Springs Art Museum, describes a “rapidly growing art scene” in the high desert. As this KCET video shows, there is a lot of imagination going into interpreting this environment.And this is where the Mojave Desert Land Trust is helping. The Trust conserves the Mojave Desert ecosystem, primarily through land acquisition, public engagement and a native plant nursery and a conservation seed bank. To date we have protected 70,000 acres, are stewarding 17,000 acres, engage with hundreds of supporters around the globe and have archived over 200 collections of native seeds.We want these lands to be what they are meant to be — open, ecologically intact and as free as possible of our impact. That’s why we’ve developed Reading the Landscape, a guide for artists on how to engage with the desert, without harming the unique area and wildlife.Professional or amateur, we invite you to discover our Reading the Landscape guide.