Galleta Meadows Estate Sculptures

Author's Comments

I came out for the serpent first, and that is probably how most people arrive. The thing snakes across the desert floor for the better part of a football field, head rising on one side of the road and tail emerging on the other, and at first encounter it is so absurd and so committed that you laugh out loud. Then you start driving and you realize there are a hundred and thirty more of these. The light here is the entire game. In flat midday sun the sculptures go dull and the rust reads as brown, but the hour before sunset in March or November is something else entirely. The metal catches low light and turns molten. The shadows the creatures throw across the sand are sometimes more interesting than the creatures themselves - long, articulated, theatrical. I have made some of my favorite photographs from this place by ignoring the sculpture and photographing what it cast on the ground beside it. Work wide for the serpent and for the herd of mammoths to the north. Work tight for the raptors and the saber-tooths, where the welds and the texture of the rusted steel become their own subject. Portrait orientation is worth remembering because several of the pieces rear up rather than stretch out, and they want vertical framing. Crowds are not the problem here. The desert is enormous and the sculptures are scattered across miles of it, and even on a good weekend you can usually find yourself alone with a tyrannosaurus and the Santa Rosa Mountains going pink behind it. Bring water. Bring more time than you think you need. The map from the Chamber is worth the stop.

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