Sweet Somewhere/Middle of Nowhere

        

       

       

      

2006 - 2007, a lot of time spent along the coast north of San Francisco, in the hills southwest of Oakland, in the desert east, and grasslands north of Los Angeles. Victorville was becoming a bedroom community of L.A.; Bakersfield was spreading across what was once farmland. Desert spaces were being carved up into track housing - quickly thrown up cookie-cutter neighborhoods of poor construction. Driving through these spaces, where even remnants of childhood loves were fast disappearing, I feared my father would be right: within twenty years, all of this would be built up. "What this land needs is a recession," I remember thinking, feeling at a loss for what to do to preserve the plants and animals who had called these lands home for hundreds of years. Little did I know . . .