California Wanderings - Ann Marie Brown

Olancha outdoor art

Riveting outdoor art in the Eastern Sierra

Olancha artist Jael Hoffmann doesn’t just live in the desert, she makes the desert come to life. Thousands of drivers have slammed on the brakes and pulled off US 395 with their first glimpse at Hoffmann’s thought-provoking art, which populates the western roadside near…

Robolights: Dystopian Christmas Wonderland in Palm Springs

Great art often makes us uncomfortable. It tells us that the status quo is not necessarily okay and that the world is unstable and problematic. In an age of Photoshopped reality and Instagram shams, art sometimes make us look at what we don’t want…

Roaming Sand to Snow: The Desert’s Remarkable Diversity

With a swipe of the Presidential pen, a huge swath of California desert was granted national monument status in 2016, protecting 1.8 million acres of land for future generations. President Barack Obama’s three new national monuments—Sand to Snow, Mojave Trails, and Castle Mountains—form a…

Alabama Hills: Sculpted boulder piles frame a sawtoothed skyline

A whimsical maze of rounded granitic boulders, golden-hued arches, and badland gullies made Lone Pine’s Alabama Hills an ideal backdrop for Hollywood westerns. Filmmakers from the early 20th century loved the way the smooth, weathered boulder piles struck a contrasting pose against a background…

Wind Wolves Preserve

Bakersfield’s Best-Kept Secret: Wind Wolves Preserve

Bakersfield is smack in the middle of the flat-as-a-pancake San Joaquin Valley. If you’re familiar with the city, you probably don’t think of it as a place for hiking and nature study. But that image will change when you pull into the parking lot…