July 22

July 31, 2022

Olivia and Maya in Cape Cod

Clarissa, Zora, Daniel, and Maya after swimming in a pond in Chatham, NY

Lydia, Daniel, Clarissa (behind), Ethan, and Maya at the pond

Dome house in New Paltz, NY

Zora and Elijah

Emma Soucek in her studio

June 22

June 30, 2022

Spent the summer with Maya in New York. Didn’t remember to take photos often.

Maya

Zora and Maya

Elijah

Maya and Clarissa

Maya and Ethan eating bananas at a pizza place

Jason Rhoades' piece in the Whitney Biennial, the only piece I enjoyed.

Elijah took Nick and I to a Yankees vs Cubs game

Elijah's childhood friend (who has the same name as me) is on the Cubs.

Elijah and Nico's Dad

Meeting Nico after the game

Milo and Zora

Moving

June 8, 2022

Last party at Maya's pasadena house before she moved out and we left to New York for the Summer

Brem and Maya

Saying goodbye to the house, Matias was there to pick up her couch.

Right before we left town, I had the opportunity to see the apartment my family lived in for the first few years of my life.

My mom lived in the apartment building in Santa Monica in her late 20s-30s with a bunch of friends, kind of like Maya in Pasadena.

Her friend John's family owned the building, and he later became our landlord. John told us that the unit was vacant for the first time in years, if we wanted to see it.

He'd redone the kitchen and bathroom, but it was still a similar layout.

This was my bedroom I shared with my brother. It's hard to describe the feeling of being in there, and having the spatial memories come back to me.

May 22

May 31, 2022

Getting my new car up and running

The small motor on the odometer got stuck when I was driving it and the mileage hit 100,000.

So I went to the scrap yard to look for a new gauge cluster.

I was able to find this one, And it ended up being easier to just replace the entire thing than the one small motor. Had to take apart the dash a bit, but it was only a few screws.

Two utility poles. one vertical one horizontal

Truck box show

Emma had a dream about a hoodie that said NO REAL SPORTS. And then she went about getting one produced, and invited friends over for a photo shoot with the one hoodie. I helped her set up the camera and lighting.

My dad paid for a new set of tires on the Blazer after one exploded on the freeway, and almost made me crash

Jacob Fenton in his studio at UCLA

Connie's birthday picnic

Fargo

May 26, 2022

Some friends from the one roll I shot this month.

Was driving past Jane’s house and caught her as she was arriving home from the airport. Hadn’t seen her in months.

LACMA construction

Sebastian, Dom, and Preston (not pictured) visiting me in the shed.

Emma put on Fargo on her mini TV in the kitchen at their house while she made fried chicken salad for lunch. I stood in the kitchen with her and watched while she cooked. We thought it was a funny movie to watch on a screen so small. And while standing up. We paused when she finished cooking and I sat with her and brem as they ate. Then we went back to the kitchen to watch as she cleaned up the dishes. Then maya called me upstairs and I missed the rest of the movie.

Maya got emotional while packing up her bedroom. They’re getting evicted from their house in Pasadena where they’ve lived for two years at the end of the month because the landlord is gutting it and turning it into condos. I don’t think I’ve ever taken a photo of someone crying before.

Wedding in Napa

May 15, 2022

Maya and I drove up to Napa with Roman and Kyra for Vita and Jesse’s very extravagant wedding.

We stayed in this 'glamping village'

We stopped to get lunch in SF before driving back home. SF looked so good that day.

Treasure island for the first time.

First rolls of color film processed at home

April 26, 2022

I got a color film developing kit and processed some film at home for the first time. These are some photos from the first two rolls.

Gianni

Shoe truck Gianni showed me. It was parked beside a cobbler’s shop.

Wienerschnitzel at the end of my street, which closed down while I was staying in Swansea. I once applied to work there as my first job, and went through an interview at one of the tables outside, but they never got back to me. Soon to be a yuppie coffee shop.

Light art piece at 10 Fwy overpass on Pico and Centinela, the threshold of Santa Monica and West LA. By Shiela Klein, who also made the Vermonica, which was originally at the intersection of Vermont and Santa Monica.

Maya on her porch.

Maya showing Brem the shoes I got her. Clover and Emma in back.

Stella

Olive’s House, designed by her parents. I always loved the birch plywood floors and walls.

Maya and Olive on Ashland Hill. I messed up while loading the film into the developing tank reel, so they ended up touching pressing against each other. Lost Olive in the process.

Harlan's Desert Shack

March 30, 2022

Desert Hot Springs, CA

I went out to visit Harlan at his shack about 8 weeks ago and this is the stage it was at. He had just put up the framing, all with lumber he found around the desert.

I helped him put up metal roofing panels, which he ripped off of a fence at a shuttered car dealership in Venice the day before.

On my previous visit, I helped him build this palm frond hut.

Harlan was building the whole thing with this single old corded drill, so we were constantly switching from drill bit to screw bit. I couldn’t believe he put up with working like this, I’ve always used two cordless drills.

Harlan framing the door

Gave Harlan this sink that I used in my installation at Punto Lairs Inc.

This weekend, Harlan had a shack-warming party.

Since I last visited, he had gotten these glass panes installed in all the windows. The bottom two rows are fiberglass panels that he made.

He had improved the floor in the hut since my last visit by mixing concrete into the dirt floor.

Stayed with Maya in my new tent, first time using it.

Thomas and Harlan

Swansea snapshots

March 18, 2022

Swansea

March 17, 2022

For five weekends, I served as caretaker at the CLUI’s Owen’s Lake Land Observatory, while it was open for the season.

That isolated plot of land on the right side of the image is Swansea, a former port town in the 1860s, when the lakeshore went up to where the highway is now. CLUI now owns Swansea, and maintains its remnants. The trailers that comprise their Land Observatory can be vaguely seen on the opposite side of the highway.

The caretaker’s house at Swansea, where I stayed. The only extant structure that predates the 1874 earthquake in nearby Lone Pine, the largest earthquake in recorded CA history.

Matt’s old Chevy S10 Blazer. Didn’t know when I was taking this photo that it would soon be mine…

The saddlery

Went on a hike by myself up the surrounding mountains and was tripped out by this rock formation in one specific area. Later identified as “chert nodules” in limestone

Harper, Alice, Maya. somehow they al look the same height here

I took them on the hike to see the chert nodules I found. Alice is studying geology and so brought a whole new lens to the hike I had already done.

At the top of the hike is this old abandoned mine shaft.

Minecamp potty

The third weekend of the exhibit, I painted these road signs to hopefully attract some people off the road to the exhibit. Otherwise, the only way anyone would know to visit the exhibit was if they follow the CLUI online. The signs brought in no new visitors the first weekend, and I took them down.

Eliot and Ethan

Ethan and Eliot in Alabama Hills

Kyra and Roman

Alistair came to visit on his own.

Drove up to Mono Lake with Alistair and made many stops along the way. This was in a small isolated town called Rovana. It was originally built as a company town for the tungsten mine up the hill, then the tungsten mine closed when it became cheaper to source in China. It was surprisingly beautiful and quaint, with deers hanging around everywhere.

Zabriskie Point

On the drive back from Zabriskie Point, I hit an empty stretch of highway and thought to see how fast my car could go. The RPMs got really high and then I heard this knocking in the engine. The car drove for another 30 or so miles, just enough to get out of Death Valley, before breaking down just south of Keeler. Luckily, Harlan was on his way and picked me up. We returned the next morning and tried to get the car running.

While I was on the phone with AAA, Harlan started stacking rocks. I began collecting rocks for him and he built this wall, impressing me greatly.

This was the last time my car would ever drive, but I didn’t know it then.

Structures at the residence of Jael Hoffman and Noa Lish

Their house, amazing place

I met Noa and their mom Jael when they came to visit the exhibit. When I was stuck at Owen’s lake without my car for a week, I asked if they could pick me up and show me their house and studio.

Noa making a marble that I got to keep

Noa’s glass torch and marble molds

I got my car towed back to Swansea. I was lucky, my AAA membership only covered up to 7 mile tows, and I had broken down 6 miles away. I was trying to figure out how to get it towed back to LA until I posted my car problem on reddit and people told me it was Rod Knock, which meant the engine was totaled.

I got Matt’s old Chevy up and running, after pumping gas out of my Saab and putting it in the Chevy. I talked to him on the phone and he offered to give me the car, I would just have to get it up and running back to LA and pass SMOG.

Hand-carved door

Reading room

And every evening I watched the sunlight roll over the surrounding mountains…

Saji in the Shed

February 17, 2022

Sep. 2021

He visited the shed again in February 2022, after he cut his dreads off. I took another portrait, since he and the shed looked so different. Came out blurry.

Maya in the shed

January 26, 2022

Sep. 2021

Dec. 2021

Persimmon Tree

January 26, 2022

In Sonoma, CA on Jan 1, 2022

Bliss and Big Sur

January 1, 2022

On our way back from Nevada City on New Years Day, Maya and I took a detour in Sonoma to see the hill from the Windows XP background, Bliss, which is just off the main road.

Some other tourists were there as well.

Maya in Big Sur the following day