mojave desert

Celebrating the Desert – Edwin Vasquez

~ eric m martin ~ 2 Comments

If the Mojave Desert is an oasis of natural and stubborn quietude set next to the traffic and the hubbub of Los Angeles, it is an oasis that also contains oases – a sort of Russian doll of harbors set within harbors.

Artist Edwin Vasquez sees this desert ethos and puts it into action too, as he is known to pick up hikers in Tehachapi and help them reach their next stop on the Pacific Crest Trail. Vasquez becomes, in a way, an oasis of humanity for the intrepid hiker who has been alone in the hills among the calls of ravens and the buzzing bees.

Stepping down into the desert, they might see some of what Vasquez sees and celebrates in the Antelope Valley environs.

Celebrating the Desert is a series of posts here at AV Arts dedicated to showcasing Mojave Desert-inspired work by local artists. Today’s post features the work of ever-active Antelope Valley artist Edwin Vasquez, who has been featured on the pages of AV Arts before.

 

From Edwin Vasquez:
The first photograph is from Apollo Park, near the General William J. Fox Airfield. It is an amazing community park. This is one of the three man-made lakes for fishing and boating. It is like an oasis in the middle of our desert.
Apollo Park
The second photograph is in the Piute Ponds, a group of ponds about 10 kilometers southeast of Rosamond. This large marsh is an important stop for migratory birds on the Pacific Flyway.
Piute Ponds
Thank you to the artists who to the artists who have participated in our humble initiative to celebrate our landscape with art.

The call for submissions in our Celebrating the Desert series will remain open until January 1, 2018.

Send in some of your desert-inspired art and a brief bio to AV Arts (poeticwax@rocketmail.com). Also include a link to your website if you have one.

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Celebrating the Desert – Midge Haggard Burthe & Marcy Watton

~ eric m martin ~ 1 Comment

Celebrating the Desert is a series of posts here at AV Arts dedicated to showcasing Mojave Desert-inspired work by local artists. Today’s post features the (amazing!) work of two Antelope Valley photographers – Midge Haggard-Burthe and Marcy Watton.

The photographs these two artists sent in demonstrate a simple and sometimes profound fact: Every landscape is a mirror. Like other mirrors, we almost always find what we expect to find in a landscape, we see the things we set out looking for.

These artists must have set out looking for beauty…

There is something important in this expectation. Because to go into the desert on the look-out for glory is to say something profound about where you live and who you are.

Seen in one way, these are expert photos of a photogenic landscape, one worth celebrating. Seen in another way, they are a testament to a remarkable and important underlying ethic, one that makes celebration possible in the first place.

From Midge Haggard-Burthe:

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This is near Devil’s Punchbowl in Juniper Hills.

My name is Midge Haggard-Burthe and I am a hypnotherapist, psychologist, and disabled Navy veteran who has lived in the Antelope Valley for most of the past 28 years.

From Marcy Watton:

Fairmont

Thank you for this opportunity for artists to share their work, and especially work that is inspired by our lovely desert.
These photos represent my favorite things to do: take photos of my explorations of the desert while riding my horse.
I graduated from UCLA with a degree in Fine Art.  I teach photography and art at a local high school. I’ve been creating art and riding horses my entire life, and feel so very lucky to be able to continue to do the things I enjoy the most and share what I have learned with the next generation of artists.
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A big thank you to the artists who have participated in our humble initiative to celebrate our landscape with art.

The call for submissions in our Celebrating the Desert series will remain open until January 1, 2018.

Send in some of your desert-inspired art and a brief bio to AV Arts (poeticwax@rocketmail.com). Also include a link to your website if you have one.

Celebrating the Desert – Lori Antoinette

~ eric m martin ~ 2 Comments

For artists in the Antelope Valley, the Mojave Desert is more than just a background. It’s a source of inspiration, a place to let ideas wend and wander among the Juniper and the Creosote.

From California Poppies to Joshua Trees, artists of the Antelope Valley are gifted with enough iconic imagery in the desert landscape to rival almost any other part of the world.

Of course, natural beauty and interesting images can be found anywhere if you just look for it, but the sometimes drastic, often surprising, and usually wind-swept landscape of Antelope Valley just makes these things easy to find.

AV Arts recently put out a call to local artists who can attest to this.

One of those artists is Lori Antoinette, an artist working in multiple mediums and who seems to find different ways to “hear” the desert in her art. The work she sent in takes the form of an energetic response to some of the Mojave Desert’s most recognizable figures.

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Q: What is your artistic background?

My earliest memories are drawing with my Mom (who is a wonderful painter) at around  three years old. I had always taken some kind of art or craft classes growing up.

My degree is in Fine Art from Univ of MD and I also have a certification in textile design. I always loved painting people and architecture, but my degree is actually in abstract. After college I went back to figurative.

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In the 90’s I belonged to an art collective called DAKO Vanguard. We shared a gallery space of the same name in the downtown LA Arts District for a time. I also had my own wearable art business selling at events and tv and movie sets.

I’ve been doing street art (chalk) for 25 years now, but since retiring from the airlines I have really been working hard to hone my skills. Life is always a work in progress…

Find out more about Lori Antoinette here: