We are spending a lot of time getting our sculpture garden back up to speed after a very stormy summer. I pretty much had to unearth the labyrinth from the tangle of weeds and vines that took over. While it’s walkable again, it still needs a bunch of work since the mini-flash floods washed away most of the sand layer that was keeping the surface looking nice and clean. Slowly, we are also unearthing all the trails and clearing away the debris as well as making new areas for art.
One of the newest areas we’re cleaning up is our gratitude garden. This space will be dedicated to everyone who donates to help us make the sculpture garden bigger and better. Large ceramic letters spelling gracias will be planted in the garden along with ceramic tiles with the names of our generous donors. Want to help us out? DONATE HERE
One of our closest neighboring businesses is Villa Santa Cruz, a sweet boutique hotel with sprawling gardens, beachside restaurants, horse stables and luxury rooms. Earth Art Studio has partnered with them to offer off site desert art tours for guests and we were just mentioned in this recent article written about them in Dujour Magazine. How cool is that!?
Just a reminder that if you come out here to visit the studio, you can make a day out of it by making a reservation and enjoy a meal with your toes in the sand at Villa Santa Cruz!
September is a tricky month weather wise in Baja, it’s the peak of hurricane season and some say the hottest, buggiest and most humid month of the year. Last year, it was lovely fall weather with a few intermittent showers, this year has been downright, H.O.T. and I’ve been checking the radar reports daily. Luckily the big storms have been staying out to sea and we have only received water, not wind and the desert is loving it. Between our property and town is the Grande Arroyo, normally a broad, dry river wash, but it ran with water from the mountains all the way to the ocean for the first time in two years, it’s amazing to see. We have a much smaller arroyo on our property that is part of the sculpture trail, it’s a small enough tributary that it hardly ever runs, but it’s big enough that we had to build a bridge with tubes in it for the times when the water does come. And it ran too for the first time in years, luckily we had moved all of the art of of the arroyo beforehand.
dude is about 4″ long!our arroyo after it ran
With all this rain, comes the greening of the desert which is so vibrant right now, the property is almost unrecognizable. The flowers are all in bloom, mushrooms are sprouting and dying all in the course of a day and the bugs and birds are aplenty. When the temperature cools off enough to do some yard work, we will have our hands full this fall. I’m pretty sure that you can sit and watch the vines grow throughout the day, the grasses are popping up on all our trails and the labyrinth is getting taken over by weeds that have just been waiting for this deluge.
tiny cactus, big flowerviews from the studio
We’ve also learned that we’ve got some leaks in the studio that will need some attention and we’ll need to do some drainage work to redirect the water on a better path when we get mini-flash floods on the property. The leaks are frustrating, the amount of bugs flying up my nose and in my eyes are maddening, but seeing the desert come back to life after years of dormancy, is pretty spectacular.
Choose from our Gray Agave Art Sticker, our Black and White Cactus Art Sticker or our classic BUY ART. All are printed with eco-friendly inks on thick, durable vinyl that is highly resistant to scratches, water and sunlight.
If you’ve visited the studio over the past two years, our desert was mostly a field of browns and grays since we hadn’t had a significant amount of water in two years. But the flora of the desert are patient creatures, lying in dormancy until their time comes to go green. Luckily we have had a few storms roll through, with possibly more to come and the desert has gone from brown to green seemingly overnight. Check out these before and after photos of the property, what a difference a little rain makes!
The sculpture trail now has grasses and vines popping up in the middle of trail, everything is flowering and the bugs and the birds are thriving too. In an abundance of caution, we have pulled all of the sculptures out of the arroyo for the summer storm season, but the pieces that are still here in the higher sections of our property have a completely new environment to shine in. We are hoping to have enough water in the next few weeks, that our desert stays vibrant through the winter.
Thank you for being patient while we took some time away from writing blog posts this summer, but now, we’re back! Here’s a few things you may have missed out on…
We partnered with Cero Basura (Zero Trash) and have adopted our local beach Playa Tia Michaela – stay tuned for an organized dune clean up this fall!
The Price Sculpture Forest held its annual Wander/Wonder ‘sculpted dance happening’ and my installation Spore Patterns was chosen as one of the works for dancers to respond to. Be sure to check out this spot if you’re ever on Whidbey Island, WA – it does not disappoint!
New photos of A Feast of Flowers installation in Santa Cruz CA was posted to our public art page, check them out here!
We had planned to launch a new group exhibition in the sculpture garden this fall, but decided to hold off until the spring, so keep an eye out for H2O, our water themed exhibition in early spring of next year – it’s going to be a good one!
Just an FYI, that we are going to take a summer break from writing blog posts here on The Dirt (unless something amazing happens that we have to share!).
In the meantime, we’ll be over here working to improve the studio and sculpture garden, make new works, update the website and shop and plan for new events and workshops in the fall. Doesn’t sound like much of a break does it??
We are still open by appointment if you want to come visit, please contact us. Happy summer everyone and we’ll see you in September!
Please check out these talented artists that participated in our first group exhibition Sticks + Stones | Palos + Piedras!
I’m so sad to see this show go, I have loved having every single one of their works in my studio and sculpture garden. Learn more about each artist and their work through the Artists Sharing Artists series.
You can follow them on social media to keep in touch with their creative endeavors! Enjoy and be sure to come see our next exhibit coming this fall!
Sticks + Stones | Palos + Piedras Artists: Christa Assad, Steven Jacobi, Abel Martinez Gonzales, Kevin Wickham, Jenni Ward, Natalia Szalc, Ulises Martinez, Paolo Melandri + Rudy Mendoza.
Just a heads up that as we head into the summer season, Earth Art Studio will only be open for tours of the studio and sculpture garden by appointment. Please contact us if you’d like to visit!
And if you want to know about our upcoming events in the fall, please join the mailing list!
Mil Gracias to the UBER talented Susun Gallery who while visiting us on her vacation, also upgraded the Earth Art Studio signs to a whole new level. Next time you visit, you’ll be greeted by these beauties at the gate, we are so grateful to her for sharing her talents and charm!
