Reimagining the Desert

Lucid Stead

Imagine for a moment, a serene destination encased in and exuding light from every surface; a house that blends into the landscape seamlessly. The visuals of the house transform with the changing light of day and night, and this place seems to grow and modify with every new breath of air, with every new phase of the sun and moon. The quiet desert winds are the only soundtrack to this otherworldy experience . . . this is not just a place in your imagination, a getaway for your psyche, this is real, this is here in our beloved Inland Empire. This is Lucid Stead.

Artist Phillip K. Smith III is a desert native who hails from the Palm Springs area and still resides there today. However, with Lucid Steads nine-year journey into existence, Smith has been maintaining a residence just down the road and over the hill from Lucid Stead in Joshua Tree, to manage a hub for it, as well as spend as much close time with the project as possible. Phillip K. Smith III received his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, a notorious and highly regarded institution. He often draws inspiration from the Californias Light and Space movement, as well as minimalist design and deconstructivism. Smiths innovation and exploration of new technologies keeps these ideologies current. He was honored as the 2010 Artist in Residence at the Palm Springs Art Museum and was included in the exhibition, Smooth Operations: Substance and Surface in Southern California Art, alongside Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, DeWain Valentine and Craig Kauffman at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, where he will have a solo show in January 2014.

Lucid Stead is truly a collaboration with the desert, and with the history of the area. Smith lives and breathes the desert, and that sense is truly felt in this contemporary, experimental homestead-art-piece. Driving around the Joshua Tree area, its not uncommon to stumble upon the sights of these tiny little abandoned shacks known as Jackrabbit Homesteads, strewn across the quiet landscape. Many artists find solace and inspiration in these homesteads, including Smith. After nine years of sitting with this land and this one shack of a house, Smith let the land and house speak to him and dictate the creativity of the property.

When people drive up to the house, the first thing they noticethat changes the whole experienceis the silence. The land out in Joshua Tree just has a different pulse than other places. It operates on a different timeline and a different world view. Out here at Lucid Stead, light and shadows interact with the sun. The house has become a part of the desert, a part of the land as it interacts with the light, the reflection, the landscape.

A lot of my work is about merging these highly precise developments, Smith says, like these rectangles, next to something thats highly organic, you know, something that falls through the fingers of your hands, you cant necessarily hold onto it. So I love that theres these very crisp visions pushed right up against the dry wood. The whole shack is an existing homestead shack, its been here for probably 70 years.

The house exists as it always had, the same wood, the same door frame, window frames and rooftop. Smith did not replace anything in the project, he only pulled away material and added light and reflection. It is covered in panels of mirrorin the daylight, the house seems to merge into the land, both reflecting itself and the desert it so generously adores. At night, though, its a whole different experience.

At night, its about projected light. The four windows and the doorway turn into fields of color, Smith explains. White light emanates from the inside out . . . and ultimately that last element was change. You know, this desert up here moves at an entirely different pace of change.

The nighttime lighting is almost like a psychedelic experience to say the least, a kind of performance. The moon and stars light up the ground, theyre so bright in this unpolluted sky, while the homestead performs its own little ritualistic celebratory dance of light. The colors move and shift around the house in a cyclical manner, but at a slow and steady pace thats hard to even notice. Its beautiful and peacefully satisfying to stand in its presence. With the quiet surrounding of Joshua Trees outer limits, with the peaceful slow-moving colors of Lucid Stead, night becomes the time for Lucid Stead to sing its quiet light song, far away from the hustle and bustle of the city, but extremely vocal in its own way. The more time you spend with it, the more things reveal themselves, Smith says.

Smiths past work touches on similar styles, concepts and issues. His intense perfectionism is a gorgeous gift in his art practice. Giant, bright and mind-melding installations and sculptural experiences transform spaces, collections, whole buildings even. His love for the Light and Space movement is very apparent, but he takes that style to another level. Often working with light and experience, it seems his real passion is the pure experienceno words, no figures, no suggestions. Abstraction and creation based on the momentary whole body experience of art is a clear achievement for Smiths worktruly masterful.

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Reimagining the Desert