Bishop, CA—The 16-foot fiberglass travel trailer affectionately called “The Egg” has rolled over 4,000 miles to arrive at its current resting place in the foothills of the Eastern Sierras. Andy and I (and Pickle, the dog), have called this little trailer home for the last three months as we began a year-long adventure to explore the country, connect with new clients, and give away over $25,000 in free design and photography services to artists, non-profits, and entrepreneurs in need.
Monterey, CA—Jess and I have been offline a bit the last few days, forced by geography to unplug a little and enjoy the beautiful, majestic scenery that is Big Sur. Big Sur is located just south of the city of Monterey, CA. Yep, that Monterey. (Think: Jimi Hendrix, circa 1967, starting his guitar on fire on stage and you’ll probably recall.)
Our first stop in Los Padres National Forest, was just a few miles south of Monterey off Hwy 1. It was very difficult to keep the Egg on the road AND look at the amazing coastline just to our right, so we pulled over at the first coastline access we came to and spent the better half of the afternoon there. I shot a bunch of photos while Jess read Moby Dick while listening to the thundering and erratic waves. To add to this, we brought some low-end Trader Joe’s port and watched the sun set. We had arrived in Big Sur, and it felt glorious.
Los Angleles, CA—How we ended up in a room filled with some of the brightest minds in Los Angeles—from the Deputy Mayor to Moby—was the result of a chance meeting under a boulder in Utah.
While we were climbing in Joe’s Valley, we ran into Orange County native Alvin Kim (check out his blog—you’ll be inspired). Alvin’s sister Christine was one of the organizers of a new event bringing together “creative leaders from across Los Angeles to share best practices and investigate new ways to make their burgeoning civic, architectural or design projects a reality.” Christine reached out to us after hearing the DesignEgg story from her brother and we soon had an invitation to the Making LA Conference, the culmination of a year-long programming series organized by de LaB, an LA-based nonprofit with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Saint George, UT—After leaving Cedar City, we decided that our next stop would have to be Saint George, Utah. The second largest city in Utah (next to Salt Lake City), Saint George has a population of 77,000 people and is located amongst ridges and foothills of deep red sandstone blocks and cliffs. The city also happens to be located 45 minutes from Zion, the 229-square mile national park—Utah’s first, which is filled with mind-blowing sandstone monoliths and other geologic wonders too numerous to name. To us, the grandeur we felt seemed in equal measure to the feelings we had rolling into Yosemite Valley on our honeymoon six years ago. Jaw. Dropping.
Cedar City, UT—On our way out of Joe’s Valley we decided to stop for a week to work in Cedar City, a college town that sits near the northern border of Zion National Park. Like other small towns we’ve had the pleasure to stumble upon, Cedar City has plenty of facilities to support us, including a great public library, a friendly Walmart where we can park our trailer, a local coffee shop, and the entire Southern Utah University campus, complete with a rec center, Shakepearian-style theater (SUU is home to a renown Shakespeare festival), and a lovely art gallery.
Last night, the gallery—and more specifically, an incredible image of a Julia Galloway pitcher—caught our eye as we wandered around campus. When we stepped into the Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery we were greeted by a plethora of familiar names and some of the best ceramic sculpture that we’d seen in a very long time. As Gallery Director at Lillstreet Art Center, I had the pleasure of working with many of the artists included in this show, 50 from 6: Contemporary Ceramics from Six Rocky Mountain States, and the exhibit brought back warm memories of my time at Lill.