New signs at AZ West
Posted: December 22, 2011 Filed under: A-Z West 1 Comment »
While we are showing off the new HDTS signs, I also wanted to remember to post the signs that just went up a few weeks ago at AZ West. With 35 acres all cobbled together – and with each parcel serving a different function – it’s becoming more and more important to help people find their destination on the property.
Skylar helped us figure out an economical way to build the metal frame and Randy Brill executed the router carving. Then Patrick and Marcus kept warm on a winter afternoon by digging 40″ holes and trying to get the whole thing leveled out in three directions.
the hq has it all…
Posted: December 20, 2011 Filed under: High Desert Test Sites 2 Comments »
Last Thursday Patrick, our intrepid HDTS intern Ari, and Andrea erected and installed our beautiful new HDTS signs. The HQ is tucked around the corner off of 29 Palms Hwy – and we don’t have a lot of visibility to those taking the straight and narrow through Morogono Basin. Plus lots of people don’t even know who we are. A guy came in a few weeks ago asking if High Desert Test Sites is where we give tests to the homeschoolers! Anyway, Randy Brill at the Sky Harbor Swap Meet came through for us once again with this suite of signs, hand made with a router. And Patrick and Ari dug some REALLY deep holes right next to the sidewalk by the entrance of the HDTS HQ.
Hot water
Posted: December 15, 2011 Filed under: A-Z West 3 Comments »
Solar showers are high on our wish list as part of the new kitchen and bathroom area in the encampment. In order to try some preliminary tests with solar hot water we temporarily repurposed one of the composting toilets as a test shower. To do this we connected four sections of 50′ black garden hose together, then we connected that to a shower-head, last we added in mixers to control the hot/cold ratio of the water – and walla… a shower!
Reports from our lone resident were that the shower was warm in the mild November weather –but not long lasting and hot. I’m not sure if a long hot shower is even possible with a solar shower in November (average temps are in the low 50’s in the day), but it would be good to know if using the black hose is a better or worse strategy then using a black water tank. Anyone out there have any good answers for this?
Marcus’s Poop
Posted: December 13, 2011 Filed under: A-Z West, Research 2 Comments »
Among the new amenities currently underway at the Wagon Station encampment are composting toilets. Being total novices to the world of composting, we thought we’d start with simple toilets that use five gallon buckets to collect the poop, then composting it in an official composting area closer to the future vegetable garden. The toilet enclosures were actually a lot of fun to make – we started out with a minimal plan and a pile of wood, but turned out pretty stylish!
The composting bins were conceptualized by Ari (and built once by dry stacking) and then remade with mortar by David Baker. Later on they will get a coat of white paint. According to the Humaneur Handbook, the “compost” should age for a year before we use it – hence the two sided bins. Cement block was used for the bins in order to keep out rodents (later lids will be added) and to keep moisture and humidity in.
A Letter From The Island
Posted: October 8, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 Comment »
I got a really great letter the other day from Katharine Ball – the 2001 Resident on the Indianapolis Island, a work commissioned last year by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Katharine made a grey water system right under the sink inside the island. And she is a really intense, honest and thought provoking writer You can read Katharine’s letter her here – and then check out the rest of her blog…
Wagon Station Update
Posted: September 3, 2011 Filed under: A-Z West, Wagon Stations Leave a comment »
While the billboards were being painted in the clean space, and Lay of my Land” was being fabricated in the center sculpture studio, there was yet another work simultaneously coming together in the studio’s “flex” space… where seven customized Wagon Stations, recently extracted from the land A-Z West, were assembled to prepare them for a journey to Stockholm, Sweden. And as soon as that group left the studio TK and Ernie began work on seven brand new units. These will be positioned out in the desert later this month, when Tova, our first Swedish resident, comes to stay in one for a month as part of the Magasin 3 project.
More Studio Catchup
Posted: August 31, 2011 Filed under: A-Z West Leave a comment »
Part two of studio catchup features of “Lay of My Land” – a new sculpture for my September show at Regen Projects. It’s a sculpture of A-Z West, split up into sections representing the individual parcels that has been painstakingly acquired and added together to create a seemingly united whole. When the frame arrived from Chuck’s place up in Baldy it was BIG. So big, that it caught all of us off-guard, but fortunately the new studio swallowed it up perfectly.
Dan came down from Portland for a social visit and ended up making rocks, and Jim came out from New York and made models, and Neal and Erin came out from LA with endless heavy dusty bags of hydrocal stuffed in their cars. And somehow in the end it all came together. Now, believe it or not, as I post this I’m actually now sitting in Stockholm where we are now making other variation of this sculpture for a show at Magasine 3 (that opens next week!) but that part comes later….
Full On Everything
Posted: August 24, 2011 Filed under: A-Z West Leave a comment »
If there is one reality that I’ve had to resign to, it is that whenever things are absolutely and totally full on in the studio, my ability to keep the log totally grinds to a halt. So now, coming out of six weeks of total action on every front, there are a bunch of photos to post.
In the “clean” space I’ve been working like crazy on a few more billboards: two text works “Blissful Productivity” and “Epic Meaning” (the color of Epic Meaning is a lot better then it appears in the photo) and a landscape image based on a photo I took from the top of the hill behind my house.
