I had an opportunity to visit one of my good friends Mikel at his Joshua Tree weekend retreat while I was in Palm Springs, so I skipped out on Atl Summit and headed to the desert. Joshua Tree has always been on my bucket list, so I got in my rental car and drove an hour out into the middle of nowhere. A dirt road and lots of Joshua trees later, I arrived at Mikel's amazing home.After a tour of his house, we headed into town for lunch, but first Mikel wanted to show me
Noah's Park. It's an outdoor museum: an installation completely constructed of up-cycled materials. Noah Purifoy was truly a visionary man; Noah poured his entire soul into this art installation. I was blown away, and we walked for an hour among each piece of art, exploring interactive displays. Many works fuse architecture and art as the structures are towering.
The theater is full scale and has a working stage. Many sculptures have messages. It's an epic experience, full scale and moving, which was the artist's intention. It's obvious that Noah had a point of view, and it's why the experience of walking the installation is so moving. I highly recommend a visit if you're in the area. In fact, I highly recommend a visit to Joshua Tree. It's a national treasure, and there is nothing like it. I was not disappointed with the landscape and was happy I opted to skip out on the conference. After all, there's nothing more fun than playing hooky, especially to enjoy a fantasy afternoon in Noah's Park with a good friend. Plus I found my new hero,
Noah Purifoy!
I do not wish to be an artist, I only wish that art enables me to be.– Noah Purifoy, 1963Born in Snow Hill, Alabama in 1917, Noah Purifoy lived and worked most of his life in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree, California, where he died in 2004. He received an undergraduate degree from Alabama State Teachers College in 1943 and a graduate degree from Atlanta University in 1948. In 1956, just shy of his 40th birthday, Purifoy earned a BFA degree from Chouinard, now CalArts.His earliest body of sculpture, constructed out of charred debris from the 1965 Watts rebellion, was the basis for
66 Signs of Neon, the landmark 1966 group exhibition on the Watts riots that traveled throughout the country. As a founding director of the Watts Towers Art Center, Purifoy knew the community intimately. His
66 Signs of Neon, in line with the postwar period’s fascination with the street and its objects, constituted a Duchampian approach to the fire-molded alleys of Watts. This strategy profoundly impacted artists such as David Hammons, John Outterbridge and Senga Nengudi. For the 20 years that followed the rebellion, Purifoy dedicated himself to the found object, and to using art as a tool for social change.In the late 1980s, after 11 years of public policy work for the California Arts Council, where Purifoy initiated programs such as
Artists in Social Institutions, which brought art into the state prison system, Purifoy moved his practice out to the Mojave desert. He lived for the last 15 years of his life creating ten acres full of large-scale sculpture on the desert floor. Constructed entirely from junked materials, this otherworldly environment is one of California’s great art historical wonders.
