The Desert Through a New Lens!

~ Ryan McHale, Head Curator 

As the temperatures begin to rise in the Valley, many places start to slow down, but here at the Imperial Valley Desert Museum we are still in full swing! 

We just finished installing a new temporary exhibit, Through the Lens: Desert in Modified Infrared. These unique photographs are captured by Luciano Demasi, a professor of Aerospace Engineering at San Diego State University. 

When not in the classroom, Demasi spends his time in the desert capturing its beauty both visible and invisible to the naked eye! 

What is Modified Infrared? 
The visible spectrum - what is visible to the human eye - is about 380 to 700 nanometers. But this is only a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum! The infrared spectrum refers to 700 to 16000nm. 

Demasi first captures the photos with an infrared filter to “see” light beyond what is visible to the human eye. He then modifies the photos through Photoshop to enhance the images and add vibrant colors. 

His work produces a dreamlike or Dr. Seussesque landscape. When viewing the photos your imagination can run wild and your creativity is sparked! If you have spent any amount of time in and around Anza-Borrego Desert State Park or Joshua Tree National Park, you might actually recognize some of these seemingly other worldly landscapes! 

The exhibit will run for three months, so make sure you get a chance to see it! If you decide you must have these unique photos hanging on your walls, they are available for purchase! 

With highs possibly reaching above 115 degrees this week, come beat the heat at the Museum, and see the desert through a new perspective! 

Sun, Fun, and Fireworks

~ Lesliee Parker, Education Coordinator

This past Thursday, July 4^th the U.S. of A celebrated its 243^rd birthday and here in Imperial Valley we went all out with Freedom Fest 2019 hosted at Imperial Valley College. Your Imperial Valley Desert Museum team and a handful of our most engaging volunteers set up and manned two booths in the children’s area at Freedom Fest. The day was spent interacting with kids and their families.

For one of our activities, we played a tool making game we use to teach youth about adaptation. The idea is simple, using a limited amount of crafting items, inspired by materials found in our desert, you create a tool that will stick to a foam target we’ve provided from a few feet away. Sound simple? Well, it’s a little harder than you’d expect; it's all about perseverance and adaptation. Some of the tools we saw were incredibly imaginative and the shouts of excitement whenever someone got their tool to stick on the target were enough to liven up anyone’s day.

Under our second canopy, staff and volunteers were having fun getting their hands dirty with clay. Children and adults enjoyed learning how coil clay pottery is traditionally made in our region. I heard a few exclaims of delight whenever someone's olla came out just the way they wanted. A few individuals also had fun making whistles and going about the area showing off their works of art to their friends. All in all, the day was unbelievably fun-filled and the heat was made bearable thanks to all the excitement, smiles, and laughter. As the evening's big event snuck up on us, portable lights were lit in our space to keep the fun going until the very last possible moment. Eventually, like all good things, the fun had to come to an end, but the amazing fireworks show brought everything together so well and gave an explosive ending to a fantastic day.

Fireworks show at Freedom Fest 2019

Tortoise Enclosures and New Beginnings

~ John Andrew Davis Hitch, Artist in Residence

Hello readers,

My time in Ocotillo has come to a close.  On Saturday, I made the move to Los Angeles to start my new career after spending the last month and a half working as the Imperial Valley Desert Museum's Artist-in-Residence.  It has been wildly rewarding working here.

Graduating with two degrees in science, the connection between my degrees and my time here is not the easiest to see.  However, my background working with the Museum and its staff as a volunteer, as well as the project I was brought on to complete (the Desert Tortoise Enclosure) utilized the skill set I had developed from college very well.  I couldn't have asked for a better opportunity right out of college.

Working alongside not only the Boy Scouts of Imperial Troop 4070 but also the youth of the Imperial County Department of Probation Community Work Service Program was an absolutely incredible and rewarding experience.  Volunteering their time to help better their community (in lieu of fines for minor offenses), these youth came out every Saturday morning to help complete the enclosure.  I loved sharing my experience and knowledge with them, and they were quick studies as they learned the technical method behind my madness.  It wasn't easy work, but was a labor of love that they worked passionately on.  Now that it is finished, these students will see the exhibit as they drive past on the highway, and the fruits of their labor will be easily visible to them and countless others for years to come.  

It was this program that also gave me the learning experience needed to apply for and accept a position as Environmental Campaign Field Manager in Los Angeles.  My time leading the kids and teaching them the process of laying down a little over two thousand pounds of stucco cement, and watching them pick up the process of applying the stucco around the enclosure to solidify its permanence at the museum, made me incredibly proud.  It was this same process I started when I was their age, fresh into high school when I was taught how to do the process on the Museum's Celestial Observatory.  Almost seven years later that same skill set was applied to my first college position, which was a fact I let the kids know when discussing my plans for the future.

I will always remember the students wishing me luck while I left on the weekend to interview for my position in Los Angeles, and their smiling faces when I saw them the next week and they asked if I had gotten the offer.  Thank you IVDM and thank you Imperial Valley for all you've done for me; this truly is an amazing place ripe with opportunity and chances to grow into your own.