BE IN THE WILDLIFE
Black Rock Art Gallery
Be in the Wildlife is inspired by Sharon Lee Hart’s fall 2019 artist residency in Joshua Tree National Park. The exhibition’s photo-based works represent a range of perspectives on the park including those of local elementary students, park employees, residents, as well as the artist’s, and connects back to photography’s tangled relationship to space, memory, and time. The online gallery also includes artworks made by local students.
Be in the Wildlife will be accessible online throughout the Big Read month and in-person at the Black Rock Art Gallery in
Yucca Valley, CA in 2021.
Artwork: Coalesce by Sharon Lee Hart
DESERT BOUNTY
Copper Mountain College - Student Show
Art and Science students of Copper Mountain College engage in creative collaboration for Desert Bounty, an online art exhibition accessible throughout the month with a native desert plant theme.
Drawings, paintings, and photographs are presented, along with scientific descriptions for each illustrated plant. The student creations are in direct response to the beautiful landscape work of Jeffrey DeMorrow, whose unique installations are featured on campus.
The student work for Desert Bounty was selected by Biology Professor Dr. Anamika Basu, and Art Professors Emily Silver and Cathy Allen.
Artwork: Hedgehog on Bristol Board by Rachel Jenkins
PEOPLE ARE LIKE PLANTS
Joshua Tree Art Gallery
The Morongo Basin Arts Council is excited to partner with the NEA Big Read to present People Are Like Plants, a group exhibition of local art that supports the themes of Hope Jahren's memoir Lab Girl and the shared curiosity, humility and passion that drives both scientists and artists.
Jahren's pioneering research focuses on the connections between living and fossilized plants and their ability to help us track changes in our global environment. In Lab Girl, she explains: “A cactus doesn't live in the desert because it likes the desert; it lives there because the desert hasn’t killed it yet.” This sentiment particularly resonates with life in the Morongo Basin. Visit the online JTAG gallery throughout the month of September to view artwork about science, nature and conservation that reflects the survival instinct and resilience that we see in ourselves and our desert ecology today.
SEPT. 5 - 30, 2020