I returned to San Francisco once more this summer, for the closing of my show. For the closing, I organized a concert of musicians playing through the Leslie. Then I spent a few more days in the bay delivering and installing works that people bought, before deinstalling the whole show and bringing the remaining pieces back to LA.
I was at the gallery during open hours before the Leslie concert, and this painter named Leonie came in and saw the show. I talked with her for a while and she told me about David Ireland. I hadn't heard of him. She said his house museum was right down the street. I asked if she'd take me there.
I was absolutely amazed by David Ireland's house.
His resin-covered walls were so beautiful to me
I went back to the gallery after my time with Leonie, to set up before the show.
It was so gratifying to watch the concert come together.
The turnout was even better for the closing show. The crowd was so attentive and engaged.
I realized that my friends Emma and Rafael lived a few blocks from where I was staying in Berkeley, and my friend Flannery was visiting them for the weekend. I met them in the morning for breakfast.
Then we went to Emma's studio.
Then we went to Rafael's studio
Then our friend Parker joined us, and we went to Indian Rock
Sam knew some people at the Supreme store in SF, and I'd been wanting to see the bowl there, so we met there and skated it for a while.
Sam rips!
Gabe and I went to see the show at Et Al gallery
By my friend Gozie Ojini
The show was up for one more week after the concert. We got a group of visitors on the last day.
Lizzie was the last visitor of the day, and she'd mentioned that she was looking for a cassette recorder just like the one on the Leslie. Gabe just gave it to her.
After closing the gallery, we went out for beer with Oona.
After that we met up with Thea at another bar.
They had Alien Lanes by Guided by Voices in the juke box, which I paid to play in its entirety.
There was a huge group show at House of Seiko, with something like 100 artists in one small room.
Parker
Tristan
Tristan's piece in the show
Showing me their bathroom renovation project
Saji came up to the bay in a rental car.
We had a long fun day that lasted into the night, and we went out to see a movie in Oakland. Then when we came back- his windows were smashed and all his shit was gone. His laptop, his favorite boots, the shirts he had bought that day.
We were so bummed for him.
The Stereo-viewer piece sold, but I was replacing the slides with a selection of found stereo-slides from my collection. This process of changing out the slides is pretty laborious, and I set up one of the tabletops in the gallery space to do it. My friend Sam's family bought the piece, along with one of the flashlight shelves, which I delivered myself.
I hand-delivered and installed one of the flashlight pieces in the home of this lovely woman in San Francisco- Beau Takahara.
I met her at the gallery one day, and she decided to buy one of the pieces after.
Her house was absolutely full of art. Weird and eclectic stuff.
Beau and I spent hours talking after I installed the piece. She was so lovely and had such an interesting life.
The last of the three flashlight shelves was bought by Gabe's wife Thea's mother.
We delivered it to her together, and Gabe later installed it himself.
Big Thief in Berkeley with Lucinda Williams
Thea, Gabe, Oona
Finally, we deinstalled the rest of the works and loaded them into my car.
Gabe with the owner of Cushion Works and his dogs.
Saying goodbye to Thea and Gabe before driving back to LA.
I took the 101 back down to LA.
I stopped for lunch in Monterey.
I liked passing through all the old farm towns along the 101.
Installing SIMPARCH’s plywood skate pool at Supreme.
Here is the soon-to-be Supreme retail store on Fairfax Ave., where we will be installing the skate bowl.
Here is where the bowl will be installed.
The first step is getting all the pieces of the bowl out of storage.
Babygirl and Badgett unloading the pieces from the box truck.
Rick
Chris and Rick wheeling the pieces into the shop
Loading the wedges into the shop took two full truck loads. All in a day’s work!
Custom dolly made by Badgett
Next step is removing these protective plywood strips, which had been screwed into the sides of the pieces to protect the edges as they were dragged around.
Clay prepares to erect the first piece.
The first piece went up easy!
Second piece…
Chris and Clay installed these temporary studs to hold the pieces in place
Clay using a big jack to hoist the piece into place
Chris made this little pedestal to temporarily support the deep end as we were installing it.
Once half of the deep end pieces were up, we could replace the pedestal with the final support post
That’s all the pieces of the deep end installed!
Next are the hip pieces, which are the most complex shapes.
The hip pieces went up easy! A few more support posts were installed underneath.
Clay polishing off the tips of some bolts tying down the posts…details matter!
Next are the identical wedge-shaped pieces of the shallow end.
The shallow end went up quick!
The last piece…
Badgett inspecting the fit before lifting in the last piece
Voila!
Rick takes a break after a long day of work
Lastly- the center caps, which required a few layers of ply to be cut to shape.
The shallow end all done and screwed in
The deep end
Behold!
Next we remove these other protective strips
Here are the bundles of ply which will form the deck joists and the spandrel, which is the curved beam that will surround the perimeter of the bowl.
With the spandrel installed, the final support posts can be installed.
The dudes lifting the frontal support beam
Then we installed the joists of the deck surrounding the pool
The plywood for the deck subfloor cut around the contours of the pool and ready to be installed
Chris lifting the decking up into place
Backing into place…
A brief detour to hoist up and install the handrail
Clay screwing the rail into place
Chris screwing in the last of the thousands of subfloor screws. Really coming along!
A little doodle on the subfloor to be revealed when the pool gets disassembled…someday!
Next is the tedious step of installing the concrete coping.
An epoxy was used to fill the seams between the pieces, hence the masks.
Clay using a pry bar to lower the heavy blocks of concrete into place
On the final day we had help from Badgett’s nephew Andrew.
The top floor plywood pieces contour cut and ready to be screwed down.
Clay removing the temporary support studs now that the bowl is held in place by the deck
Andrew screwing in the thousands of screws on the top layer of flooring
And just like that- it’s done!
A few months later we visited to see how they were enjoying the pool…its inventory storage capacity was even greater than we expected!
I finished the sculptures for my show Flashlights and then drove up to San Francisco to install them. My life had been on a nonstop train for the previous few months, with my dad in hospice, then dying, then planning his memorial, then leaving on tour for 6 weeks, then coming back home and working on the work for my show for another month. The show opening was the light at the end of that long tunnel.
I finished the work on my birthday, and had some friends come over to see the work, before I drove it up to SF. Here's Harlan playing through the Leslie.
Drove the car full of work up to SF.
I had some last minute soldering to do up until the minute the show opened
There was a great turnout of people for the opening.
Afterwards we had dinner at Mission Chinese.
The next day we went up to Point Reyes and got a bucket of clams for a picnic.
Paige, Thea, and Maya
Paige and Gabe
Sam Benzoni!
On my last night in the bay, I went to go see my friend Nina. She'd gone through an awful immune system crisis a few years ago, and went blind as a result of it. She was staying at a dormitory school for the blind in Albany. I picked her up and we went out to dinner and she caught me up about her life.
I got to see her dorm room, and she demonstrated the braille typewriter she'd been learning to use. A big part of the program is learning how to read and write braille.
I told her I was planning to darn a sweater Gabe had given me
And she showed me this darning job she'd done a few years before.
On the way back to LA, I decided to take Highway 99, through Fresno. There was a place I'd known about for years but had never been to, the Forestiere Gardens.
They were the remains of a series of tunnels dug by an Italian immigrant who had moved to Fresno after living in New York City, where he worked digging the Subway tunnels.
They say that he bought land in Fresno, planning to farm it, and when he arrived he found arid, infertile soil. He recalled the coolness of the subway tunnels, and figured that if he dug his own tunnels, he could plant his farm underground
Digging the tunnels became an obsessive activity he continued until the end of his life.
The tour takes visitors down into his living quarters, which received ample light from atriums and were indeed much cooler than the ground above.
I stopped in Visalia, a town I'd visited once in high school after watching the movie Ken Park.
Back in LA after a long tour. I caught up with friends and then took a quick trip to the bay to see In Concert- the gallery space where I would be having a solo show. And then another quick trip up to Owens Lake, for a bike ride.
Stella and Aidan's birthday by the LA river
Maya got a space in Dajin's studio.
Maya and her grandparents Bill and Sue at her brother Zev's college graduation.
Zev at home on his graduation night.
I flew to SF, which I'd never done, and was pleased to see these Wayne Thiebaud paintings in the airport.
Gabe and Natalia
Gabe in his studio, which belonged to a harpsichord builder before him.
Gabe assembled ephemera left over from the harpsichord studio into this piece
Gabe drove us to SF to his gallery
This is the space my show would be in.
In Concert's space was shared/hosted by Cushion Works gallery. There were two gallery spaces, one large and one small, which the two different galleries would trade out each show. My show would be in the smaller space.
In Concert had this show up, by Dorian Reid
Cushion Works Gallery was hosted inside Cushion Works, a cushion factory in SF. Their bottom floor had a showroom of all their sample cushions, some of the comfiest I've ever felt.
There was an opening at the Oakland Museum of Art for a show about the different progressive arts studios in the bay area.
Gabe helped work on the show, since he works for NIAD.
I got to meet Dorian Reid, whose show was up at In Concert.
Gabe drove me to SFO
We stopped and got pizza at Arizmendi
Then he stopped to show me Sign Hill in South SF
We took our pizzas up there to eat. Arizmendi gives you a little bonus slice of yesterday pizza.
Then I went back to LA to make my work for the show.
Aidan and Eliot in Elysian park
Eliot in his garage studio with a new shelf and a new painting of washing hands.
Then Maya and I drove up to Owens Lake, for CLUI's new Swansea exhibit.
Hunter organized a bike ride across the lakebed, as part of his Infrastructure group ride series.
Soon after we started the ride across the dry lakebed, a truck pulled off the freeway and stopped to ask what we were up to.
He had come down from Nevada to pan for gold. Supposedly this year's historic snowmelt had stirred the creeks up so much that there was a '2023 gold rush'.
He had a Youtube vlogging channel, and decided to join us for part of the ride, and include it in his video.
Maya and I peeled off from the group when we got to Swansea. They continued on up to Lone Pine.
Maya drove us back to LA
Continued from previous post
Maori gateway at the Auckland airport. It had been about ten years since I was last in New Zealand. My mom is from there, and we visited often when I was a kid.
My brother had planned a trip of his own to Australia and New Zealand after dad died. The timing worked out that we were in Auckland at the same time.
I met him at Michelle and Will's house, where he was staying, for a dinner on my first night. James cooked.
Michelle brought out this duct tape flower I'd made in elementary school. They'd kept it all these years.
Lunch at the Auckland Art Gallery with Jackie and Michelle, who had both lived at my house at different periods of my childhood.
Painted 1906
Skyler came to the venue at soundcheck to say hi to the band.
It was unclear if Jackson would pull through for the rest of the tour, after postponing the previous two Australia shows. He did.
All our family friends showed up to the Auckland show.
Luka lived at our house when we were in high school, and I hadn't seen her since then.
I left Auckland and continued on to Welliington with the tour.
Massive sculpture in the Wellington airport, by Wētā Workshop, who did the special effects for all the Lord of the Rings.
City Gallery Wellington
One of my goals in New Zealand was to see a painting by the Kiwi painter Michael Smither in person
I was looking for his work in every museum and book shop I went in. I found this book of his early work that I had never seen before.
I had heard of a small artist-run space in Wellington called play-station. They happened to be having an opening the one night I was in Wellington.
The gallery was by the art school, so I was curious to see what the crowd was like.
The show was by an artist who had recently lost her father, and some of the work was about him. I talked to her and told her I had also recently lost my father and had a solo show upcoming and I was inspired to see how she paid tribute in her show.
The Wellington show.
Ripped my favorite jeans while helping with the load out.
New Zealand gov't capital building.
From Wellington, we flew to Christchurch, for the end of the tour.
In my hotel room, I was watching a video by a New Zealand carpentry youtuber.
At the end of one video he included some footage from a recent trip to Christchurch.
I realized that I could see the park they were at in the video from my window.
My hotel window also looked out over this big unpaved parking lot.
I remembered that Christchurch was mostly destroyed by an earthquake in 2011.
Looking at historic aerials, I could see how much of the downtown was lost in the quake.
My hotel is in the center (it was actually the tallest surviving building) and all the parking lots surrounding it were once big buildings.
It was interesting to be in a city 10 years after most of it was destroyed, and see that the reconstruction is very much still in progress. Most of the downtown was empty lots.
I noticed a few small scrappy buildings built in the aftermath of the earthquake, as provisional community sites.
The city's famous 'Christ Church' in the center of town was still being rebuilt.
Many buildings had been condemned after the quake, but still stood, awaiting retrofitting, or demolition.
The town center was rebuilt in a very sleek modern style.
It was interesting to be in a city that was in the process of rebuilding itself, forging a new identity, meanwhile preserving what it could.
I ran into the Aussie tour promoters by the hotel one night and they took me out to an Indian restaurant. Great blokes!
Hanging out in the hotel lobby with crew and band guys before the last show.
I went to the earthquake museum.
The exhibits gave a timeline of the series of earthquakes that hit the town from 2010-2011
This screen played a skate video made by local skaters after the quakes, making use of all the new skate spots created by the upheaved sidewalks and rubble.
I loved seeing all the weird right-hand drive cars that never made it to the US market.
This car was rather beat up, and covered in moss and graffiti.
I later found this article.
The car had been made into a fountain for a temporary public sculpture.
In the hollowed out foundation of a building lost in the quake.
I wish I had gotten to see it.
The rebuilt Christchurch public library.
I finally found the definitive monograph of Michael Smither's work there.
I loved this painting.
I had a print of this painting on the cover on the wall in my college dorm room. I loved it so much. I made a painting inspired by it.
At the Christchurch art museum I saw a piece by my old sculpture professor, Fiona Connor.
I'd heard of a small gallery in town called The Physics Room. They were having a lunchtime artist talk on the day I was there.
The art scene there is small and intimate, so I stuck out. The curator Abby came up to me immediately after the talk and asked who I was. I stuck around and talked with the artist Priscilla Rose-Howe and her friend (who I didn't get a picture of) a guy named Lee.
I talked with Lee and asked what else I should check out while I was in Christchurch. He recommended a few places. He told me he was planning to come to LA in a few months and we exchanged contact info...
I went to this gallery Object Space that Lee recommended.
Then I went to the art academy building, which was still being restored.
The stonework was being redone with period-correct methods, part of why it was taking so long.
This was an exhibit of ephemera found in the rubble of the building
Young artists were being trained to carve stones cut from the same quarry the building had been made with 100 years ago.
They had kept some of the broken stone work from the original structure.
The art academy had a complex of boutiques
I was charmed by this homewares store Frances Nation, which had just opened a few days prior.
Frances Nation served an egg salad sandwich with preserved lemons.
One Million Marks by artist Chauncey Flay
A gallery worker explained that the artist had taken a hundred stones from around the south island, and ground them down into faceted sculptures.
He took the powdered stones and made pigments out of them.
He then made a 100 page book for each stone, with 100 marks made from its pigment.
All the books amounted to a million marks, hence the name of the show.
Each book was for sale, and came with a custom made box that stored it and its corresponding stone.
Lee recommended I go to the botanical gardens, where I saw the ruins of these trees which fell during the earthquake.
The concert venue for the last show was the Christchurch Town Hall. The structure was badly damaged in the earthquake but was restored and reopened in 2019.
End of the tour.
The final loadout.
Brian, Jackson's guitar tech, had confided in me a few days before that his father had passed away earlier that morning. He'd been worried that it would happen while he was away. He finished out the rest of the tour stoically. I can sense his relief to be headed home in this photo.
I flew back to Auckland with the band, and then while they caught a continuing flight to LA, I stayed on in Auckland for another ten days.
I went to stay at Michelle and Will's house in Parnell with my brother.
Skyler at Mt. Eden
Volcano crater in the middle of the city. We used to come here as kids.
The house our mom grew up in, Mt. Eden.
At a pie shop in Mt Eden.
One of NZ's major national holidays, ANZAC Day, happened while I was there.
Every year, thousands of people gather at sunrise at the Auckland War Memorial Museum for a parade.
I had never been anywhere with that many people at that hour before.
Continuing my hunt for a Michael Smither painting, I went to the gallery he was represented by.
It was closed, but I could see a print of his through the window.
A secondhand shop with a good name.
Most delicious eggs benedict from Benedict's.
Skyler and I left Auckland on a little road trip up north to Whangarei.
We went up there to see the Hundertwasser Arts Center, completed in 2022.
Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an Austrian artist and visionary builder, who spent most of his life in a small town near Whangarei.
Hundertwasser designed the art center in 1993, but the project stalled and her died in 2000.
This was a small maquette structure, built in his style, for approval by his estate before construction began on the main building.
The wall text said this rug was the last thing he worked on before he died of a heart attack aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2 in the pacific ocean.
I was somewhat relieved to see these photos of the house in which he actually lived, which was relatively pragmatic and simple compared to the architecture he designed.
After Whangarei, we stayed the night in Matakana, at this resort where an old family friend worked.
Sophie
Sophie lived with our family in LA for a few years when my brother and I were young, and she was too.
I went with Sophie to a morning yoga studio dance class.
Sophie drove us to a nearby beach
Sophie was newly pregnant, or maybe soon-to-be? I can't remember.
We stopped in Matakana village, where we had memories of from past trips.
We ran into an old family friend there, randomly. We hadn't seen him since our last time in NZ.
Back in Auckland. Ice cream with Luka.
I told Michelle that I was hoping to see a Michael Smithers painting while I was there. She collects art, and got a catalog to an upcoming auction at a gallery with a few of his paintings.
It happened to be one of my favorites from his book I saw in the Christchurch library.
It was so amazing to see in person.
Karangahape Road.
I'd heard about Samoa House Library, a small arts library started by students after the Auckland art university got rid of its arts library.
It was in Samoa House, which had historically been a Samoan cultural building on K Road
The library was completely donation based, and its shelves are sorted by Donor, rather than traditional categories.
I grabbed a stack of books and sat at a table for a few hours, reading them.
Meanwhile, a film crew set up in the library, to film a documentary about Samoans and Pacific Islanders in Auckland.
They were filming a roundtable discussion, and it was interesting to eavesdrop and get context to the Samoa House.
I started talking to one of the librarians, Gracie. She was curious about how I'd heard of the library, it seemed rare that they got a foreign visitor. She got my info and invited me out to drinks with her friends later that night.
Gracie's friends- Salene, Electra, and Emily. Salene and Gracie were roommates, but had met while living in San Francisco.
Coastal Signs gallery
I'd been connected to Sarah Hopkinson, who runs Coastal Signs, a year before via email, through Fiona Connor. She told me to reach out if I ever visited NZ. So I did. She wanted to connect me with Auckland artists, so she sent out a text to her friends to come get drinks with me the next night.
Tree in parking spot.
Michael Lett Gallery
I was shocked by how many of Sarah's friends showed up to meet me for drinks. In LA, I couldn't imagine corralling that many people to meet a visiting stranger.
Sarah and Ammon Ngakuru
Gracie and Salene also came.
We went out to Karaoke on K road after.
A very lovely night
I wanted these books, but didn't have much room in my suitcase. Then I had the idea to donate them to Samoa House Library.
I met Gracie and her friends again at a sports pub.
I gave her my donation to Samoa House
On Skyler's last day in town, we had a series of quick catchups with family friends.
Nathan took us to the harbor to show us the super yacht that he works on.
Skyler and Nathan
Then we met our friend Kate for a beer
Then we met our friend Bradley for a coffee. Brad lives in Joshua Tree, and just happened to be in town with his family. He was in a big NZ rock band Stereogram.
Skyler wanted to check out this guitar shop.
On my last night, Gracie and Salene had me over for dinner.
It amazed us how aligned our interests and tastes were. Salene was a geography professor at the Auckland university, but went to art school.
I stayed late, and said a quick goodbye.
And the next morning, I was on my way back home.
Landing back in LA after a month and a half away.
Continued from previous post
We left Tokyo and flew straight to Brisbane, Australia.
Once there, we boarded buses, and drove a few hours to the small beachside town of Kingscliff.
We had 7 days off in Kingscliff.
It was a hard comedown from the frenzied pace of my time in Japan.
I went to the beach and started making sculptures in the sand.
A big J.
Recreating a doorstep design I saw in Osaka.
Fish and Chips, Passionfruit, and Lemon & Paeroa
There was a small strip of restaurants by the hotel. I ran into someone from the band or crew each time I went there.
Hanging out with Mason and Sammy in Mason's room.
They are probably talking about guitars.
The first show of the Australian tour was at the Byron Bay Bluesfest.
Only one of the three semi-trucks full of gear was flown over from Japan.
I wandered the festival grounds during the day.
It was interesting to see how festivals worked backstage. The crew for each band would set up their instruments on these wheeled platforms, and when it was their time to go on, they simply rolled the gear onstage.
A good family friend, Kyle, happened to be at the festival as a guitar tech for Joe Bonamassa. It was nice to see someone from home.
Marcus King
They played a short set, just the hits, for the festival audience.
Beers after load out
Then we flew from Brisbane to Perth, all the way on the other side of Australia.
They call Burger King "Hungry Jacks" in Aus.
Our hotel in Perth was surprisingly the fanciest one we'd stayed in. I ordered room service for the first time.
Perth is called the most remote city in the world. It's the only major city in Western Australia, whose main industry is mining.
Most of the fancy people staying at this hotel on business trips are in the mining business. The hotel art was all aerial photography of Australian mining operations.
It was nice to be in a city again, after spending the week in a sleepy beach town.
Public sculpture representing five different stages of whiteman colonizing Western Australia.
I noticed an effort to preserve historic building facades while rebuilding huge sleek modern buildings on their footprint.
I kept seeing these copper-tinted stains on the ground. It fit very well with my image of Australia as a red-dirt island.
The stains were rust, from Perth's iron-rich water supply.
Sprinklers cast rusty shadows on walls everywhere.
One of Perth's main historic tourist attractions is the Perth Mint.
Inside, they have exhibits related to the Australian gold rush.
Including this one-ton solid gold Queen Elizabeth coin.
In the old smelter room, a young museum employee gave a demonstration of melting and casting a gold bar.
I was impressed that they actually melted the gold in a furnace and poured it in front of us.
Apparently they use the same gold bar for decades, repeatedly melting and casting it again everyday.
And then I saw Queen Elizabeth.
Kangaroo nutsack bottle openers.
My hotel room overlooked the Perth hospital. There were helicopters flying there all day, rescuing people from the vast outback, since it's the only major hospital for a huge part of the country.
Another indication I was very far away from home- all the utility poles were made of curvy trunks from Eucalyptus trees.
Skate plaza designed to pay homage to Western Australia's rich mining history. All the obstacles were made of stone.
The show in Perth was in a big public park, where they had erected this temporary band stand and seating over a pond. It was taken down after the show.
Sound check
Noticed some re-used roadcases.
The temporary backstage area set up for the show.
I walked around the park and saw this double-helix staircase observation tower.
I sat in the audience while the opening bands did soundcheck, and Jackson came and sat down next to me. We had a nice conversation. This was the most time we spent one-on-one for the whole tour.
Jackson performed in his Better Call Saul t shirt
A huge team of workers arrived right as the show ended to take down the band stand and seating.
From Perth, we flew down to Melbourne.
I appreciated this chic toiletry assortment in my hotel room.
The bathtub had a TV inset into the wall.
Another example of the historic facade-ism.
Historic building contained entirely within the atrium of this new mall.
I woke up to the shocking text that the show later that day had been postponed, due to Jackson having lost his voice.
I hit up my friend Rex, and got to spend the day with him instead.
Rex and I had been online friends for years, with a few mutual friends from a short time he lived in LA. We'd met for the first time a few months before, when he came to visit LA.
He took me to his house in an outer suburb of Melbourne called Reservoir
He lived there with his girlfriend Jade and a few friends.
It was a beautiful house. They'd built up a thriving vegetable garden over the pandemic.
We had a beer on his roof and watched the sunset.
Then Jade made an amazing dinner with vegetables from the garden. It was the most memorable meal of my whole trip.
Their housemate was out of town, so they encouraged me to stay the night.
I woke up before them and spent some time admiring all the details of their house.
Their housemate had a nice woodshop in the garage. Different lumber than I'm used to seeing on this side of the world.
Having morning coffee.
Their housemate made a lot of furniture around the house.
One thing I had never seen before were these light switches on the doortrim. It made so much sense to route electrical wire through the trim.
We went out for breakfast and they walked me to the train, I hurried back to the hotel to make the flight with the rest of the crew.
We left Melbourne without a show, and headed to Sydney, unsure what would happen with Jackson.
We stayed right on the harbor.
The opera house was really amazing to see up close.
I had never known that its white surface was clad in ceramic tiles.
The next day we got the text that the Sydney show was also postponed. I couldn't imagine the logistical nightmare going on behind the scenes. I felt so lucky to be completely insulated from it.
I wasn't into Sydney as much as Melbourne, but there were some really charming old neighborhoods.
I was surprised by how European some streets felt.
Went to this hipster café/bar
The huge concert hall where the show was supposed to be happening that night.
I got all around the city on the public bikes
Saw utes everywhere.
I loved this public sculpture of a boulder crushing a car. I thought it was a shame, though, that someone had graffitied a face on it.
I looked up the piece later and found that, actually, the face had been part of the original work.
A 2004 sculpture/performance by the American artist Jimmie Durham. Bizarre!
The only young person I knew in Sydney was Niamh. She had lived in LA and was actually Rex's ex.
I reached out and she invited me to a party that night at her sister's flat. We went out to drinks before with her sister-in-law Meg.
It was a pretty intimate party, so I stuck out as an American.
I ended up at a McDonalds with some people from the party later.
With the second show postponed, I sensed the band members were getting a bit restless, and unsure if the tour should even continue.
I went out for lunch with Greg Leisz and Jason Crosby.
I got a kangaroo burger.
The Aussie tour managers who had been dealing with the shitshow of the postponed shows rented a room in the hotel to play an Aussie-Rules Football game. It was their hometeam playing, so they were screaming and hollering at each play.
At the Sydney airport.
This animatronic face stopped me in my tracks. It moved around and changed expressions.
The mechanism
Jackson, who had reported feeling better, after the two canceled shows.
For some unexplained reason, they'd booked me a business class flight for this one flight, whereas I'd usually been in coach with the crew.
I was so delighted by the business class treatment.
The food was great.
Continued from previous post
Superfans at the train station again from Nagoya to Tokyo
This time they even got my autograph
As soon as we got off the train, we would be lead by our tour guide to a van, which would take us to the hotel, where our room keys were waiting for us. It was such a luxury to not have to worry about the logistics of traveling.
We stayed in the heart of Shibuya
Tokyo was far more touristy than the other cities we had been to.
I was curious to try a "California Burrito" in Japan. It was good.
4 seater bar on a street of small one-man operations, a Yokocha Alley.
All band/crew dinner
Mason (guitar), Fritz (drums), Bob (Bass)
I went out for a walk around with Bob and Greg after the dinner
A reminder of home
I turned a corner in Shibuya on my way back to the hotel one night and saw this picture with a sign I recognized, of a hoagie place in Venice. Then I recognized my friends Ali and Hank were in the photo. Then I realized my friend Aidan had shot it.
Second-hand electronics store
I had been searching for this Pastels CD for years. It was in its original Japanese packaging.
I went to meet my friend Yuki in the really chill Koenji neighborhood
Yuki was sitting at an art show, so I met him there
It was inside this building that he had been helping some guys renovate.
The artist was actually this American guy Luke, who manufactured a line of plastic toys.
Talking to Luke, I found out that he had lived in Santa Monica at one point.
The building was on a commercial strip of small shops with apartments on the second floor for the shopkeepers.
Luke gave me some of his plastic toys as a keepsake.
Yuki's new friends Luka, Claire, and Cleo came to visit the show.
They were also American
We went to dinner down the street afterwards, at an Okinawan restaurant.
Luka was just visiting Tokyo, but decided to organize and install an art show while she was there. She invited me, it was in a few days on my last night in Tokyo.
I had never eaten most of the food we ordered, but I loved it. This was bonito on bitter melon.
Cleo, Claire, and me
Luka, Yuki, and Fiona
We discovered all these small-world connections.
I took the train back with Claire and Cleo.
The band traveled with an insane amount of gear. Each guitarist pretty much had a different guitar for each song in a set.
I spent a lot of time hanging out with Sammy, one of the guitar techs.
Mark, monitor engineer
The first show in Tokyo
I spotted the superfans I'd met at the train station near the front row.
After the show, one of the managers said someone had left something for me. It was a flash drive.
I realized it was from Jimi, who showed me the photos he'd taken of my dad in 1994. He'd compiled all his photos of my dad over the years for me.
He included all the photos he took that day at the station. My Dad and Fritz (drummer), the only one still in the band.
Valerie Carter (singer, died in 2017)
Dianna Cohen and Jackson
Mark Goldenberg (guitarist) and Kevin Mccormick (bassist).
I had recently seen Kevin when he came to visit my dad, a few weeks before he passed.
Fritz Lewak (drummer) and Scott Thurston (multi-instrumentalist).
I couldn't believe how young they all looked.
It was so different now...
Jimi had even met my brother, when he came on tour with my dad in middle school.
Chavonne and Dad in 2008.
Photos from a show in Hiroshima, 2017
I was so moved to see these photos of my dad that I never knew existed. I never saw Jimi again, and I wish I had gotten the chance to tell him how much I appreciated seeing these photos.
I had one Japanese friend who lived in Tokyo, also named Yuki. I'd met and worked with him years before in LA. He happened to be hosting a DJ set at this underground bar called forestlimit.
Yuki and Con, who performs as ARTHUR. Con was visiting Japan and Yuki invited him to do a DJ set. I was a big fan of his music, and had seen him play live in LA a few months before, so I was really stoked to hang out with him.
Con and Yuki's friend Shu
Con and me
This guy was serving soup at the show
Other Yuki came out to the show too! We were dancing with these guys, who went to school in Tokyo
There was another group of westerners in the club, they were from Dublin. They were musicians and decided to move to Tokyo, which was inspiring to me.
Yuki and I walked to the train together, just making the last train before they stopped running.
I took a train to an outer neighborhood to visit the Tokyo-Edo Architectural museum. It was about a mile walk from the train station.
I loved seeing this suburban sort of neighborhood, in contrast to where I was staying in Shibuya. It felt very quaint.
One of my favorite things about Japan was how the zoning allowed for shops and small restaurants to be located nearly anywhere in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
The Edo-Tokyo Open-Air Architectural Museum was a big campus within a park, where old buildings had been relocated and restored.
This mock commercial street had shops filled with period-goods.
After the museum I visited Yuki again at his apartment in Koenji.
It was the only time I got to see inside an actual Japanese home
I loved the small appliances.
Yuki had only been living in Japan for about 6 months. While he was there he began applying to architecture grad programs. He had just heard back and was accepted at MIT. Which meant that he would be moving again soon.
He had stumbled upon these guys working on this old building in his neighborhood. He poked his head in and somehow got involved in the project, which was turning the old house into a book shop and art gallery.
A sketch of the design for the renovation.
This sketch shows the block, which includes a bar (at left) run by the same people.
They were saving all the old lumber to reuse.
At a little bar in his neighborhood.
On the train to Shibuya
We met up with Kimi for dinner. Kimi was a close friend of my high school friend Seiya, who had been living in Tokyo when he died in 2022. I had always wished to visit Seiya in Japan, so it was special to hang out with one of his friends.
Kimi was great. He'd actually gone to art school in LA. Now he works in film in Tokyo. Yuki and him actually had some mutual friends.
My friends Maggie and Annakai from LA happened to be visiting Tokyo at the same time
We walked around Harajuku
And then we went to the art show Luka and Claire organized at Claire's apartment.
I had to leave in the middle of the party and run to the concert venue a mile away to catch the end of the last show in Japan.
As soon as I got there I was thrust out onto stage.
They were doing a round of applause for all the crew that had helped on the Japanese tour, and brought them all out on stage.
I stayed for the encore, then ran back to the art show at Claire's apartment
When I got back, the party had spread outside.
I met a bunch of interesting young people living in Tokyo.
I met these two, who had actually gone to RISD and had a bunch of mutual friends with me.
After the party we ended up hanging out outside the Family Mart down the street. There were a bunch of skaters there.
I asked the skaters if they had known Seiya, who was a skater, and it turned out they all did. Daimon pulled up his shirt and showed his tattoo of Seiya's art he got over his heart after he died.
I was ecstatic to meet Seiya's friends.
We spent the rest of the night partying.
Even Con showed up
Con and Luka
We went to a club across the street, on the 7th floor of a building. People kept buying me drinks.
At 3 am, my friend Eris from LA walked into the club. It was so unexpected. I had no idea he was in Japan.
I left the club with Luka and her boyfriend Kintaro, who was from New York. They were staying out all night until the morning trains started running again, so they were down to walk with me to my hotel.
At 4 am we ran into Mason, the guitarist in the band, also drunkenly wandering the streets after the show.
We all got ramen at a real midnight diner.
The next day we left Japan for Australia.
And the Japanese crew led us right to our terminal...
[This is the first of four posts of photos from a tour I went on with Jackson Browne’s band - Japan,Aus,NZ]
While my dad was sick in hospice care at home, we spent a lot of time watching the 2009 Japanese television show Midnight Diner. This got us talking about Japan, where he had traveled many times to play music on tour with Jackson Browne. When my brother was in middle school he got to go along with my dad on a Japan tour, but I never got the chance. He said Jackson was about to leave on a two month tour of Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. If he wasn’t sick he’d be going too. He suggested I ask Jackson if it were possible for me to go on the tour as a member of the crew. I reached out to Jackson but heard back from him a few days later, saying that he didn’t think it would be logistically possible at that point to add another person. It was a long shot anyways. I hadn’t gotten my hopes up.
The day my dad died, my family sat around his bed for a while after he took his last breaths. After an unbroken hour, I got a phone call. It was Jackson. My mom said I should answer it. I did. I told him that Dad had just passed, and he was the first to know. He said he just wanted to tell me that he spoke with his management and they said it would be possible for me to come on the tour with them. It was startling news to receive in such a moment.
There were three weeks between my dad’s death and the start of the tour. We held his memorial service at our house. Shortly after this, I packed up and left for the first leg of the tour, to spend two months around the people he toured with for 30 years.
We landed in Osaka. This was the view from my hotel room.
The first night, I went wandering around by myself through this vast mall of covered streets.
I was trying to find a place to eat, and nervous about the language barrier.
Ate at Yamakura, I think it’s called. A chain ramen shop. You order on a machine outside and it dispenses a ticket which you hand to the chef at the counter and he brings you your meal.
It was good ramen. Hugest bowl id ever seen
Hotel with four heads symbolizing 'the four races of the world- Asian, African, Arab, and European.
One thing I quickly noticed was there was almost no street parking anywhere in the city.
Instead of street parking, there were many small private parking lots, or garages with elaborate elevator systems and turntables.
All of this made car ownership costly and more inconvenient than simply walking or taking public transportation.
A family commuting on bike
Cast bronze bike tire.
Pebble-lined doorstep inset into the concrete entrance of this restaurant.
The first of the liquor vending machines I'd heard rumors about. This one was out of service.
Neighborhood book shop
Office tower with a highway running through it.
Jackson took a few of us on an excursion to Kyoto, to Sanjūsangen-dō temple.
No shoes (or photos) in the temple
Bandmates: Alethea (vocals), Chavonne (vocals), Jason (keys), Jackson, Bob (Bass)
Jackson took us to an old Soba restaurant later.
Chavonne and Alethea have been touring with Jackson since they were younger than me. He plucked them both out of their church choirs.
Jackson with his music journalist friend and our tour manager, Aki.
Back in Osaka, I went shopping. I wanted Japanese clothes, but most of what I could find was American.
Colombo-Nice small book and coffee shop.
I talked to the shopkeeper, who asked me where I was from.
I told him LA, and a few moments later he pulled out a photo album from a trip of his to LA 20 years ago, when he was my age.
I was looking for a very uncommon stereo-realist camera, which I found in the first camera shop I went to.
Venue of the first concert
I enjoyed sitting in the audience and watching the local crew unload all the heavy equipment on stage. The show before the show.
I didn't realize that bands toured with their own sound systems.
I loved seeing the crew and band's roadcases, customized over many decades of touring.
This was the band's stage wardrobe case.
My dad's drawer was still labeled. I hesitated to take a look inside...
I loved this huge case for the baby-grand piano.
It was really interesting to see how a tour functions. The crew arrives to the venue early in the morning and unpacks and sets up all the gear. Then LUNCH. Then the band comes and does soundcheck. Then dinner. Then the show. Then the load out.
Pinky, one of the production managers.
Someone told me there were people backstage who wanted to meet me.
They had known my Dad from previous tours, and always liked him. They gifted me a framed picture of them with him.
Then I met Toru, who also wanted to meet me.
He had spent time with my dad on previous tours and was also very fond of him.
I was touched by these strangers sharing their memory of my dad with me.
The band before the first show. Fritz (drums) Jason (Keys), Mason (Guitar), Greg (Pedal Steel)
Mason Stoops was the youngest guy in the band. He'd been subbing in for their regular guitarist on few recent tours. I'd never met or heard of him until my dad's memorial.
Mason took me out to dinner after the first show.
He told me that hanging out with me was just like hanging out with my dad.
Showing Mason the Muji section in Familymart.
The next day, we took the bullet train from Osaka to Hiroshima.
A big crowd suddenly formed as we got past the turnstiles. I didn't understand what was happening.
There were diehard fans who followed the band on tour, going to each show. They'd wait at the train station for the band to show up, then they'd take pictures and talk and get autographs. Then they'd take a later train to make it to the next show.
One man came up to me. He introduced himself as Jimi. He asked if I was Jeffrey's son.
He had some photos to show me.
A photo he had taken of my dad at a train station in 1994, on his first tour in Japan. He'd been following the band on every Japanese tour for decades.
My first time on the bullet train. I loved seeing these countryside towns.
Arrived at hotel in Hiroshima
Jackson scheduled another outing for the group- to the Atomic Bomb museum.
The first working liquor vending machine I found.
The Hiroshima dome. One of the only buildings close to the detonation site of the bomb that remained mostly intact.
This small plaque on this backstreet memorializes the spot directly beneath where the bomb detonated. It was a hospital.
I had to keep reminding myself that the entire city had been rebuilt from rubble just 80 years ago.
I went looking for postcards but couldn't find any I liked. Then I noticed this printer at 7/11.
I discovered that I could simply pop the SD Card out of my camera into the machine, and make a postcard print. These printers were in every convenience store, so I did this almost everyday for the rest of the tour: walking around, taking photos, immediately printing them out and sending them to friends back home.
Toru saw me in the hotel lobby
He wanted to show me his shirt.
Outside the concert venue before the show.
Sound check.
Standing side-stage at the show, I noticed this man in the front row holding something up to the band. They were CDs. One was an album of Jackson and David Lindley, his longtime friend and collaborator who had passed away a week after my dad.
And the other CD was a solo album of my Dad's from 2006, which was dedicated to me. I was so moved by this.
And further back in the audience I saw these shirts commemorating my Dad and David Lindley. I printed out this photo and mailed it to my mom.
On the bullet train again- to Nagoya
The concert was held in this old auditorium.
Which had a weekend market happening in front of it all day.
While we traveled by train, the band's equipment traveled overnight between cities, in these three semi trucks.
I stood outside the venue and watched people line up before the show.
Then I was approached by these women whom I recognized from the train station before.
They had fond memories to share of my dad, too. She showed me this selfie of them together from 2018.
Then there was the man I'd met before at the train station, who showed me the picture of my dad from 1994.
He had more photos to show me, he asked how he could get them to me. I gave him my email.
This photo was from a side-gig my dad did while on a tour in 2016 in Osaka.
The band waiting to head onstage.
Jackson heading onstage.
Continued in Part 2
Eulogy I read at the memorial of my father, Jeffrey Young (1955-2023)
I took this photo of my Dad in Fall 2019 for my therapist. I had just started seeing her and she suggested that bringing in photos of the people I talked about could help. I took the opportunity to photograph each member of my family. When I look at this photo now I think about how much our relationship changed in the three years since then.
Taking his portrait in our house was, I remember, the most time we had spent one on one in a long time. It was challenging to take his portrait, more intimate than I was comfortable with. I photographed him seated at the piano in the living room, because that was where I was most used to seeing him. His piano practicing and singing could always be heard throughout the house. When I spoke about him to my therapist I explained the block in our relationship. Never seeing eye-to-eye with each other, butting heads constantly. Occasional flare-ups then long periods of me being stubbornly closed off to him. I spoke about how he was hard of hearing from all the years of playing loud music on stage, although he was in denial about it. He always had a hard time hearing my voice, and made me repeat myself each time I spoke. He’d walk in my room. say. You good? Id say yeah. He’d say huh? Id say YEAH. This bit of friction in our daily communication was too frustrating for me to overcome, and so most of the time I found it easier not to speak to him.
A few months after I took the photo, COVID happened. Then we were all forced much closer but we retreated into our respective caves at home. My mom had her studio, my brother had his backhouse studio, my dad had the piano in the living room, and I had my bedroom. He’d play piano and sing his own songs all day.
I was focusing on my art classes, which had all gone to zoom. I could hear him singing new songs about the quarantine lockdown and Trump.
Each day id hear him revising the lyrics to the songs he was working on. He developed a whole album in the course of the first few weeks of lockdown. This was the first time I witnessed my dad’s creative process. I was in my room also trying to process the same thing, the pandemic, in my visual art classes.
I couldn’t stand listening to my dad everyday. I memorized the lyrics to all his songs by brute force, simply by hearing him practice them through the walls each day. I couldn’t focus in my room or stand to listen to him anymore. I was jealous of my brother, who had a soundproofed room on the other side of the yard. I dreamed of my own space where I could be in peace and not have to listen to him play piano and sing, and that was why I decided to build the shed.
Right when I finished the shed was when the first symptoms of his cancer showed up, August 2021.
Because of covid restrictions, we were only allowed to go in and visit him at the hospital one at a time. This was terrifying to me. I realized I had never had to be in a room with my dad one on one. Our first few hospital visits were awkward and brief.
Then his hospital stays became more frequent and it was harder to ignore the effects of his illness changing his body. Our hospital time became more routine and comfortable. The hospital rooms provided, for the first time, a quiet space for us to talk in. I didn’t have to constantly repeat myself so he could hear me. Our conversation flowed, maybe for the first time. We would watch nba games together and talk during the commercial breaks.
During one of my visits I asked him about growing up with Mabu, his brother. He told me that Mabu was the one who got him into playing music. they were in a band together. I asked if he had held onto any of their old recordings. He said, pass me my iPad. And he started playing their first album- released when they were in high school. the name of their band was Mabu’s Madness. He quickly turned it off, he was embarrassed by it. I made him play the entire thing. It sounded like a real funk band. I couldn’t believe he had never mentioned it to me.
When I went home I searched Mabu’s Madness and found it strange that it was on streaming services. Most of my dad’s albums weren’t even on streaming, how did this one from the 70s get on streaming ? I did some research and found that their small release had become some rare coveted soul-funk record by crate diggers. Original vinyl records were selling for hundreds of dollars online. a record label had repressed their LP a few years ago, and that’s why it was on streaming services
I excitedly brought my findings back to my dad at the hospital. I read him a blurb about the record I found online.
“Another insanely rare and highly coveted soul-funk gem from the tiny Maple label, which …punched way above its weight when it came to '70s R&B…[Johnny] Brantley is again behind the board for this 1971 one-off, which was led by drummer/singer/arranger Brad "Mabu" Young; it's full of funky surprises… M-Square sells for hundreds of dollars if you can find it, but you probably can’t”
I showed him the vinyl reissue with the fancy colored vinyl.
He wasn’t impressed. He just said, some people only like shit cause it’s obscure.
This showed me how much more there was to learn about my dad. His last few months in the hospital we talked more than we had in previous years combined. His long illness offered a long goodbye, a long time to break down the walls between us.
In January, he was in the ICU for a few weeks and came down with pneumonia on top of everything. He was placed on a breathing machine which forced his lungs to breathe with a mask that covered his mouth and nose.
This seemed like the very end at the time. My mom my brother and I sat around him and said our goodbyes. He was still conscious but his huge breathing mask made it hard for us to hear him speak. The thing keeping him from dying was also keeping him from saying his last goodbyes. He would try to speak to us, using what little energy he had to squeeze out the words, but he had to keep repeating himself, the friction in speaking made him go quiet. a frustration all too familiar. This was the worst way for him to go, I thought.
I went to visit him in the hospital by myself a days later. he was still on the breathing machine. it was too hard for us to converse. we watched the Andy Griffith show. I asked him if he could write something on the cover of my journal. I handed it to him and he sat there for a few minutes thinking before putting pen to paper. His hands were so shaky he could hardly hold the paper. 15 minutes later he handed it back to me…
It says
“I’m here
I succeeded
I know that
Hope springs eternal”
I’m here , I succeeded , I know that
Hope spring’s eternal.
Which is how he signed off all his emails.
And he drew this eye. I’m still figuring out what it means.
He ended up leaving the hospital and entering hospice at home. I am so happy that we got another month with him at home. And I am so comforted by his last message. I’m here I succeeded I know that. I’m so glad he knew that.
For a few weeks, I worked with Steve Badgett putting the finishing touches on his skate bowl at the new LA Supreme store. I met Badgett through CLUI, and ran into him at the Museum of Jurassic Technology holiday party while he was in town finishing the bowl. He asked me to come help him and his assistant, Clay, on the bowl.
Spent the summer with Maya in New York. Didn’t remember to take photos often.
Last party at Maya's pasadena house before she moved out and we left to New York for the Summer
Brem and Maya
Saying goodbye to the house, Matias was there to pick up her couch.
Right before we left town, I had the opportunity to see the apartment my family lived in for the first few years of my life.
My mom lived in the apartment building in Santa Monica in her late 20s-30s with a bunch of friends, kind of like Maya in Pasadena.
Her friend John's family owned the building, and he later became our landlord. John told us that the unit was vacant for the first time in years, if we wanted to see it.
He'd redone the kitchen and bathroom, but it was still a similar layout.
This was my bedroom I shared with my brother. It's hard to describe the feeling of being in there, and having the spatial memories come back to me.
Getting my new car up and running
The small motor on the odometer got stuck when I was driving it and the mileage hit 100,000.
So I went to the scrap yard to look for a new gauge cluster.
I was able to find this one, And it ended up being easier to just replace the entire thing than the one small motor. Had to take apart the dash a bit, but it was only a few screws.
Two utility poles. one vertical one horizontal
Truck box show
Emma had a dream about a hoodie that said NO REAL SPORTS. And then she went about getting one produced, and invited friends over for a photo shoot with the one hoodie. I helped her set up the camera and lighting.
My dad paid for a new set of tires on the Blazer after one exploded on the freeway, and almost made me crash
Jacob Fenton in his studio at UCLA
Connie's birthday picnic
Some friends from the one roll I shot this month.
Was driving past Jane’s house and caught her as she was arriving home from the airport. Hadn’t seen her in months.
LACMA construction
Sebastian, Dom, and Preston (not pictured) visiting me in the shed.
Emma put on Fargo on her mini TV in the kitchen at their house while she made fried chicken salad for lunch. I stood in the kitchen with her and watched while she cooked. We thought it was a funny movie to watch on a screen so small. And while standing up. We paused when she finished cooking and I sat with her and brem as they ate. Then we went back to the kitchen to watch as she cleaned up the dishes. Then maya called me upstairs and I missed the rest of the movie.
Maya got emotional while packing up her bedroom. They’re getting evicted from their house in Pasadena where they’ve lived for two years at the end of the month because the landlord is gutting it and turning it into condos. I don’t think I’ve ever taken a photo of someone crying before.
Maya and I drove up to Napa with Roman and Kyra for Vita and Jesse’s very extravagant wedding.
We stayed in this 'glamping village'
We stopped to get lunch in SF before driving back home. SF looked so good that day.
Treasure island for the first time.
I got a color film developing kit and processed some film at home for the first time. These are some photos from the first two rolls.
Gianni
Shoe truck Gianni showed me. It was parked beside a cobbler’s shop.
Wienerschnitzel at the end of my street, which closed down while I was staying in Swansea. I once applied to work there as my first job, and went through an interview at one of the tables outside, but they never got back to me. Soon to be a yuppie coffee shop.
Light art piece at 10 Fwy overpass on Pico and Centinela, the threshold of Santa Monica and West LA. By Shiela Klein, who also made the Vermonica, which was originally at the intersection of Vermont and Santa Monica.
Maya on her porch.
Maya showing Brem the shoes I got her. Clover and Emma in back.
Stella
Olive’s House, designed by her parents. I always loved the birch plywood floors and walls.
Maya and Olive on Ashland Hill. I messed up while loading the film into the developing tank reel, so they ended up touching pressing against each other. Lost Olive in the process.
Desert Hot Springs, CA
I went out to visit Harlan at his shack about 8 weeks ago and this is the stage it was at. He had just put up the framing, all with lumber he found around the desert.
I helped him put up metal roofing panels, which he ripped off of a fence at a shuttered car dealership in Venice the day before.
On my previous visit, I helped him build this palm frond hut.
Harlan was building the whole thing with this single old corded drill, so we were constantly switching from drill bit to screw bit. I couldn’t believe he put up with working like this, I’ve always used two cordless drills.
Harlan framing the door
Gave Harlan this sink that I used in my installation at Punto Lairs Inc.
This weekend, Harlan had a shack-warming party.
Since I last visited, he had gotten these glass panes installed in all the windows. The bottom two rows are fiberglass panels that he made.
He had improved the floor in the hut since my last visit by mixing concrete into the dirt floor.
Stayed with Maya in my new tent, first time using it.
Thomas and Harlan
For five weekends, I served as caretaker at the CLUI’s Owen’s Lake Land Observatory, while it was open for the season.
That isolated plot of land on the right side of the image is Swansea, a former port town in the 1860s, when the lakeshore went up to where the highway is now. CLUI now owns Swansea, and maintains its remnants. The trailers that comprise their Land Observatory can be vaguely seen on the opposite side of the highway.
The caretaker’s house at Swansea, where I stayed. The only extant structure that predates the 1874 earthquake in nearby Lone Pine, the largest earthquake in recorded CA history.
Matt’s old Chevy S10 Blazer. Didn’t know when I was taking this photo that it would soon be mine…
The saddlery
Went on a hike by myself up the surrounding mountains and was tripped out by this rock formation in one specific area. Later identified as “chert nodules” in limestone
Harper, Alice, Maya. somehow they al look the same height here
I took them on the hike to see the chert nodules I found. Alice is studying geology and so brought a whole new lens to the hike I had already done.
At the top of the hike is this old abandoned mine shaft.
Minecamp potty
The third weekend of the exhibit, I painted these road signs to hopefully attract some people off the road to the exhibit. Otherwise, the only way anyone would know to visit the exhibit was if they follow the CLUI online. The signs brought in no new visitors the first weekend, and I took them down.
Eliot and Ethan
Ethan and Eliot in Alabama Hills
Kyra and Roman
Alistair came to visit on his own.
Drove up to Mono Lake with Alistair and made many stops along the way. This was in a small isolated town called Rovana. It was originally built as a company town for the tungsten mine up the hill, then the tungsten mine closed when it became cheaper to source in China. It was surprisingly beautiful and quaint, with deers hanging around everywhere.
Zabriskie Point
On the drive back from Zabriskie Point, I hit an empty stretch of highway and thought to see how fast my car could go. The RPMs got really high and then I heard this knocking in the engine. The car drove for another 30 or so miles, just enough to get out of Death Valley, before breaking down just south of Keeler. Luckily, Harlan was on his way and picked me up. We returned the next morning and tried to get the car running.
While I was on the phone with AAA, Harlan started stacking rocks. I began collecting rocks for him and he built this wall, impressing me greatly.
This was the last time my car would ever drive, but I didn’t know it then.
Structures at the residence of Jael Hoffman and Noa Lish
Their house, amazing place
I met Noa and their mom Jael when they came to visit the exhibit. When I was stuck at Owen’s lake without my car for a week, I asked if they could pick me up and show me their house and studio.
Noa making a marble that I got to keep
Noa’s glass torch and marble molds
I got my car towed back to Swansea. I was lucky, my AAA membership only covered up to 7 mile tows, and I had broken down 6 miles away. I was trying to figure out how to get it towed back to LA until I posted my car problem on reddit and people told me it was Rod Knock, which meant the engine was totaled.
I got Matt’s old Chevy up and running, after pumping gas out of my Saab and putting it in the Chevy. I talked to him on the phone and he offered to give me the car, I would just have to get it up and running back to LA and pass SMOG.
Hand-carved door
Reading room
And every evening I watched the sunlight roll over the surrounding mountains…
