Photograph

Black-tailed Jackrabbit (Lepus californicus)

The Black-tailed Jackrabbit is one of the largest hares in North America, reaching up to 2 feet in length and weighing around 30 lbs. Also known as the American Desert Hare, it lives throughout the Southwestern United States. Its territory also reaches up into the rest of the Western U.S. and into Northern Mexico. As their large territory suggests you can find them in a wide array of environments and among different types of flora. However, you can be sure that you will find them around shrubs and bushes, which provide them everything from shelter, shade, and food. A prized meal for many predators including Raptors of all kinds, Bobcat, and Coyote, they have no chance without a good amount of cover. From my experience they are sometimes very skittish, but some times content as can be to go along eating as you pass by. However, they are definitely fun to watch whenever they do decide to run as they are dart between bushes in the blink of an eye.

Location

Joshua Tree National Park, CA

One of the more recently designated national parks, Joshua Tree National Park, established in 1994, is basically as old as I am. Up there with Sanibel, FL, and Yellowstone National Park, it is also one of my absolute favorite places to take photographs. It is an immense park, located in southeastern California, east of Los Angeles, Joshua Tree includes parts of two deserts, The Mojave and The Colorado. This unique and harsh environment is home to a surprising amount of life, if you are patient and willing to look. Named for the “trees” that dot much of the landscape, the Joshua Tree is actually not a tree at all, but is the worlds largest succulent, which makes sense as they thrive in such arid places. Black-tailed Jackrabbits, and Kit Foxes hide under the branches of these plants, getting shade wherever they can, and Red-tailed Hawks and Crows nest in the branches, some of the few branches that exist across this vast area. This park also contains two oasis where huge fifty foot tall palms grow and yield a very different, although small by comparison, ecosystem. Song birds fly through the rustling palms and temperatures are noticeably cooler. Evidence that coyotes and foxes and bighorn sheep visit these areas are always plentiful but witnessing these excursions to water is not as abundant. I have loved spending time in the park over the past few years and have never been bored by what some might think is a dull/vacant landscape on first glance, it’s not.

Barker Dam

Reached by walking the Barker Dam Trail, this manmade water reservoir in the middle of the desert is most definitely a unique and worthy site. Originally constructed in 1900, it was used by cattlemen in the area for decades, being increased in size and height in 1949. The evidence of this second period of construction is easily visible as you look at the amazingly intact dam wall. A lot of wildlife is in the area as it now acts as a reservoir for the scattered animals of Joshua Tree National Park.

FRAME

Woman’s Tongue (Albizia lebbeck)

Albizia Lebbeck, as it is scientifically known, is native to the Indian subcontinent and Myanmar. It is commonly grown in Australia and other tropic and subtropic places. I get my supply of Woman’s Tongue from Key West, Florida where it is invasive. A wood salvager who has removed the trees from construction sites and properly mills and drys the wood rather than sending it to the dump is my source for a lot of my wood.

THE ELEMENTS

Fire, Water, Earth, and Air

In the display case in the bottom of the frame, four items are preserved glass vials. The items represent the elements: fire (wood charcoal), water (mineral oil), earth (soil), and air (a milkweed seed). I include these items in my work as a symbol of the interconnectedness of all life on earth, and as a reminder that humans must do better.

The Plaque

I engrave a wooden information plaque for each work. The plaque includes what the photograph is of, the location of the photograph, what type of wood the frame is made of and where I got the wood from. The plaques also explain what the vials are in each display case, and even state the meaning of my logo. The plaques are attached magnetically and can be removed to read or to store on the back of each frame if you prefer not to have it displayed on the front.