Dear Readers,

Cold trickling creeks, running rivers and green woods were my surroundings growing up. That’s where we played as children and partied as teenagers. When I moved to Southern California, the unchanging climate and landscape were a bit unsettling—they still are, actually.

But discovering the desert made sense out of living in Los Angeles. The first time I went into the high desert, it was like visiting another planet. We were graduate art students then, and headed to the desert on the weekends. I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but the desert felt truly magical. It was so foreign to me. And of course if you add libations and other recreational fare, the experience was, well, mind-expanding.

I continue to need my desert fix.

But what is the appeal: Is it the vastness, the harshness, the brutality? Or could that be its beauty? If you’re a true desert rat, all of the above applies.

However, the desert doesn’t make sense to a lot of people, especially folks from where I’m from, the heartland. I always try to entertain my family when they visit by suggesting a short trip to the Mojave. Why? they immediately ask. One way I got to introduce the desert to my dad was on a road trip to Las Vegas. I pointed to the magnificent view out our car window. He seemed underwhelmed, then stated matter-of-factly, “Looks dead to me. It’s just a pile of rocks and dirt.”

I knew it was hopeless. I understood my dad’s point of view.

He practically lived the Tom Sawyer life growing up near the Missouri and the Mississippi. I even questioned why it appealed to me, with my deep fondness for lush greenery and four seasons.

The desert can look like an empty canvas with a neutral palette. Perhaps it takes an artist’s eye to pump up the colors and see how utterly sublime it can be. I wanted to believe my dad could see like I did. I wanted all my family to be able to see what I saw. But maybe my attraction to the desert was also my refuge from the world I escaped.

Whatever the desert means to you, it’s evident that it means a lot to Los Angeles artists.

Look at David Hockney’s famous
Pearblossom Highway photo collages or Andrea Zittel’s High Desert Test Sites. Michael Heizer’s land art. Even Burning Man was spawned for desert creativity.

Our desert issue just barely touches the tip of the saguaro cactus. Our Guest Lecturer Bill Viola is working on a new series about the hinterlands. Contributor Luca Celada interviews (recently deceased) Paolo Soleri on the architecture compound, Arcosanti, and Tucker Neel partakes in Shangrila, a Mojave madhouse of art and antics.

It’s hot. It’s our Desert Issue. I hope you can see what all the fuss is about.