THE MOJAVE
The Mojave is an ongoing long-term project documenting human interaction over time in the sprawling Mojave Desert. Because the region is home to a number of threatened animals and plants, public interest is vital. The purpose of this series is to generate conversations about the many ways the Mojave can be enjoyed and preserved for future generations.
Click here to purchase select prints from The Mojave series through Saatchi Art.
An installation at the the Noah Purifoy Desert Art Museum of Assemblage Art in Joshua Tree, California. The interactive outdoor museum, with its collection of installations and assemblage art, is one example of the many ways humans have learned to interact — and collaborate — meaningfully with the desert.
A government shutdown in early 2019 left Joshua Tree National Park temporarily unattended by park rangers, resulting in visitors harming some of the park’s namesake “Joshua trees,” or yucca palms.
A threatened species that grows wild in only a few places on earth, including the Mojave, the Joshua tree relies on another rare species, the yucca moth, for pollination and procreation.
In 2024, despite their recently-reported rebound after years of anticipated decline, yucca palms growing in the Mojave Desert faced a new threat — this time, from a private equity-backed corporate solar project in Kern County, California, which required the clearing of hundreds of Joshua trees to make space for the installation of solar panels.
As the trees continue to decline in numbers, scientists are investigating ways to protect them from the impact of climate change while local activists seek to protect the trees from corporations and special interests.
Known as “jackrabbit homesteads,” small shacks similar to the one in this photograph pepper the landscape throughout Twentynine Palms and Wonder Valley.
The structures, often abandoned and crumbling, were once part of a government effort to utilize unused desert land through the Small Tract Act of 1938. In recent years, artists and developers have renovated some of the homesteads, re-purposing them as art studios and weekend homes.
An expansive view of the desert from a lookout in Joshua Tree National Park.
A view of an art installation featuring tattered laundry hanging on a clothesline inside a shack at the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Museum.
A shack, seemingly abandoned, sits alone in the vast desert just outside Joshua Tree, California.
Another installation at the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Museum. A row of toilets without walls is a jarring reminder of the isolation and simultaneous absence of privacy that exists within the vast openness of the desert.
View of the interior of a desert shack that was likely abandoned in a remote area near Joshua Tree, California. Outside, wild Gambel’s quail roamed freely.
A yucca tree, used as decorative landscaping in someone’s backyard, peeks over a metal fence.
Some of the desert landscapes in the Mojave appear both earthly and extraterrestrial at once.
A row of mailboxes in Wonder Valley, California. Because desert homes are often separated by miles of rural desert land, mailboxes are posted together in rows and residents make special trips to pick up their mail.
An old Volkswagen Beetle sits next to a jackrabbit homestead — a quiet reminder of the resilient people who chose to build their lives against all odds in the Mojave.
This series is an ongoing work in progress.