Jo Bertini
The desert areas of the American Southwest range from high mountainous peaks to low valleys and sand dune country. These multifaceted topographies and complex geographies are embedded with legends, myths & stories, ancient and new. The richness of natural sediment and human history is immersed within the folds of the land. Every mountain range, very path, every stone, every grain of sand tells a story, so well preserved in the dry, isolated remoteness.
Desert dwellers live and walk upon other lives, mysteries and secrets, buried kingdoms all around and contribute their own legacies to the landscapes. The land is deep with story. These ancient desert places offer a sentient reminder, buried and preserved in time, out of sight, but not gone. Deserts act as a time capsule, a type of metaphor or poem to archeologies of flora and fauna, to the earths transformations, to lost wilderness, to sacred sites, places of pilgrimage and memories. They are guardians of history. The timeless nature of these places is deeply inspiring, reassuring in their sense of permanence and protective in the understanding that no one life is exceptional, everything is inextricably linked.
Thankfully you can still lose your self in the desert.