desert living rooms

If you walk out in the mornings on the country roads I walked on in Joshua Tree, you might find these life sized cabinets of curiosities.

I have no explanation for these mysterious spaces - although the last photo is a more familiar sight to all of us - but in this context it was oddly surreal.

Noah Purifoy, Artist and Human

"Born in Snow Hill, Alabama in 1917, assemblage artist Noah Purifoy lived and worked most of his life in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree, California. His earliest body of sculpture was constructed out of charred debris from the 1965 Watts rebellion. 

"From 1989 until his death in 2004, Noah filled ten acres of his high desert studio in Joshua Tree with assemblage sculptures and installations that synthesized the concerns of his life."

- www.noahpurifoy.com

I had the unique pleasure of visiting this amazing installation earlier this month. Here are some of the things I saw there ...

(White: drinking fountain    Colored: toilet)

(The White House: this is the oval office)