Surface Detail

This project was created in a remote desert area at the social, economic and geographic margins of American life: Wonder Valley in California's Mojave Desert. The work considers, close-up, the incremental and gradual surrender of abandoned desert homesteads as they succumb to landscape processes such as desiccation, sun-bleaching, and scouring. Surfaces shows us the final residue of human habitation, when all that can be scavenged has been taken away by still-active homesteaders to assist with household repairs and to upcycle into new forms. For an area with a mean income considerably below the national average it is an economic necessity to find utility value in another’s waste.