by Catherine Ruane
Artist and resident of Morongo Valley, Participant in the Highway 62 Studio Tour
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| HWY 62 Open Studio Tours near Joshua Tree is in its 25th year and is now Southern California's largest open studio event |
There is something very different about inviting people
into the place where your art is actually made.
That is one of the things I value most about being part of
the Hwy 62 Open Studio Art
Tours. For a few weekends each fall, I open my studio along with
artists throughout the Morongo Basin and welcome visitors into the spaces where
we spend the rest of the year working, experimenting, changing our minds and
occasionally staring at something for far too long.
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| Catherine Ruane in her studio |
This year marks the Tour’s 25th anniversary, and for anyone
coming from San Diego, I can say from experience: the drive is worth it.
I know because I used to live there.
I graduated from San Diego State University, later studied
at Otis and in Florence, and eventually returned to San Diego to live and teach
art. Over time, though, I found myself wanting something that was getting
harder to find there: space.
So I left North County for the high desert near Joshua Tree
National Park, where I was able to build a thousand-square-foot studio and
begin a very different kind of life.
The desert has changed the way I work because it changed
the way I look.
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| Catherine Ruane |
Drawing and painting require observation, and out here
there is always something demanding your attention: light moving across the
rocks, the strange silhouettes of Joshua trees, an enormous night sky, a cactus
blossom opening after dark.
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| Catherine Ruane |
One of my favorite ways to begin the day is with an early
hike in Joshua Tree National Park, especially in winter. Afterward, I’ll stop
at Luna Bakery in Yucca Valley for
coffee and a handmade pastry, sit outside for a few minutes and usually end up
talking with someone I know before heading back to the studio.
That sense of community is one of the things I didn’t fully
understand until I lived here.
The Morongo Basin attracts painters, sculptors, musicians,
writers, designers and people who simply wanted to make a different kind of
life. The Open Studio Art Tours are one of the few times each year when
visitors get to experience that community from the inside.
You aren’t just seeing finished work hanging in a gallery.
You’re walking into the places where it was conceived and made.
As an artist, opening my studio creates a completely
different relationship with visitors. People ask questions. They see works in
progress. They understand scale and process differently when they are standing
in the same room where the work actually happens.
And, yes, the Tour introduces my work to people who might
not otherwise encounter it, which matters to any working artist. But I also
value the conversations. Studio life can be solitary. During the Tour, the
doors are open.
If friends were coming from San Diego for the weekend,
however, I would never tell them to spend every minute racing from studio to
studio.
The desert rewards people who leave a little room in the
schedule.
I’d send them into Joshua Tree National Park early,
before the day gets busy. The surreal rock formations and thousands of Joshua
trees are still the landscape that moves me most. And I would make sure they
were outside after dark. Once you see the desert beneath a truly dark sky, you
understand how much we normally miss.
For somewhere to stay, I love the 29 Palms Inn. Its cottages have a sense of
place, there is good food and live music, and many of the musicians are part of
the same creative community you encounter throughout the weekend. For friends
who want to stay closer to Pioneertown, I’d steer them toward one of the
smaller local lodgings or rentals there rather than anything that feels
disconnected from the landscape.
Food is another part of the experience, and I’d narrow my
list to three.
La Copine is
one of my favorites because a sophisticated, French-inspired meal in the Mojave
is exactly the kind of surprise that makes this area interesting.
Pappy &
Harriet’s in Pioneertown is almost the opposite experience: casual, lively,
filled with music and a mix of locals and visitors. It feels very much like the
high desert community itself.
And on the way back toward Interstate 10, I’d stop at Spaghetti Western in Morongo
Valley. It is run by a young Italian husband-and-wife team, with a wonderful
family connection to the worlds of Ennio Morricone and Sergio Leone. Even the
story behind the restaurant feels as though it belongs out here.
These aren’t simply places I recommend to tourists. They
are part of my actual life.
That is what I hope people take away from the Open Studio
Art Tours as well.
Come to see the art, certainly. But also notice the
landscape surrounding the studios, the small businesses, the musicians playing
at dinner, the people you meet along the way and the luxury of having enough
space to actually look at things.
That is what drew me here.
The desert gave me room for a studio, but it also gave me a
different rhythm of life and a different way of seeing.
For a few weekends each October, I get to open the door and
share some of that with everyone else.
Hwy
62 Open Studio Art Tours
Oct.
3/4, 10/11, & 17/18.
HOURS: 10am-5pm
Start your art journey with the map,
app
and catalog.
Sponsored by The Morongo
Basin Cultural Arts Council, a nonprofit organization with a 501(c)(3)
status.
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