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.