Artists in Joshua Tree

The first time I visited Lily Stockman’s studio in Joshua Tree, February 8, 2019, I went because Jack Pierson told me I should. That is one of the things I love about visiting artists where they live and work. One person leads you to another, a studio visit becomes a conversation, and gradually you begin to understand a place through the artists who have chosen to make their lives there.

Joshua Tree has been that kind of place for decades. Andrea Zittel created A-Z West there more than twenty-five years ago. Jack has long been part of the artistic community of the high desert, and Lily has maintained a home and studio there for years.

I love studio visits because they allow us to understand something about an artist that we can’t necessarily learn from seeing a finished work in a gallery or museum. You see what is on the walls and on the floor, what they are reading, what they are experimenting with, what they haven’t finished, and what they have decided to live with.

This October, the 25th anniversary of the HWY 62 Open Studio Art Tours gives everyone the opportunity to have their own version of that experience. Over three weekends—October 3–4, 10–11, and 17–18—more than 220 artists throughout the Morongo Basin open their studios to the public. The HWY 62 Art Tours make it possible to build your own itinerary through the desert, choosing the artists you want to visit and allowing their locations and schedules to determine where the day takes you.

And while you are there, visit A-Z West, Andrea Zittel’s extraordinary 80-acre artwork and former home and studio, now stewarded by High Desert Test Sites.