Because Sun Spot is at a place called “Sky Village Swap Meet” I wanted present a “swap” instead of a monetary exchange. I believe it’s my role as an artist to present ideas and one of the ideas I think we all need more contact with is: alternative exchange. Here, at Sun Spot, a marketplace for artists, I am presenting an idea of exchange that skips the US dollar altogether.
One utensil in exchange for another. There is only one rule: “Don’t leave if you can’t take, don’t take if you can’t leave.” The manifesto in the shop also has as a log. Anyone can bring a lip balm, a chopstick, a pen, or a pencil to exchange at Sun Spot for an available utensil in the holder.
This idea came to me after I came across a pencil left in the soft sandy desert by my house by some chance incident on the same week as I was trying to imagine a stationery concept shop to move toward my enthusiasm for writing instruments.
So far, the project is in it’s forming stage, but still available at Sun Spot to see and experience as an idea to cook in your head as you leave. As the manifesto says at the end, “If you can’t figure this project out, that’s okay, maybe it will grow on you now that you have read this far. “
Saturday, February 3rd was the inaugural yahtzidency at Sun Spot at Sky Village Swap Meet in Yucca Valley. We played with handmade ceramic cups and dice and a scoresheet designed by hand. I am taking applications for new yahtzidents! If you are interested in becoming playing with me, please see the open call here.
I am so excited to share a new adventure in economic research and community. I am delighted to share in the role in taking over Sun Spot, a cooperative local artist shop at the Sky Village Swap Meet in Yucca Valley open on Saturdays from 9a-1pm. Elena Yu created and founded the project in 2022 and I participated as a member artist.
This year, I am looking forward to building upon previous experience with artist-and-alternative economies as well as learning about desert weekend marketplace exchanges. The site is a hub for bargain hunters and desert conversationalists alike.
I am working alongside the amazing fellow desert artist, Jillian Sandell, as Sun Spot’s co-stewards for this season. We are doing our best to learn alongside Elena’s vision and the current artist members experiences as we manifest a marketplace for artists that stands proudly outside of grind culture and wealthy patronage which often persists in popular imaginations of artist offerings.
Sun Spot offers a hub for shopping for artist’s local and experimental works as well as workshops and performative engagements during the shop’s Saturday hours. Please stay tuned to the project’s instagram account for the latest in workshop offerings.
I’d like to share with you some of the highlights of my first year in the wildly freeing and welcoming place I have been treating as a self-made artist residency and new home.
Hello from “other desert cities”
The high desert which includes Joshua Tree, Pioneertown, Landers, Yucca Valley, 29 Palms and Wonder Valley is an area indicated on a highway sign on I-10 as “other Desert Cities”. I first came here with friends in 2019. After the pandemic insisted road trip escapes only, Hashem and I visited here and agreed it was special and inviting. Over the summer of 2021, we took the plunge to make this “other” rural desert our home.
For this project, I am working with live internet time. Ever since we were forced by health and safety guidelines to stay at home during the Covid-19 pandemic and many workplaces became our homes we lived our lives evermore in front of our screens. This work was developed exclusively considering the meaning in this context. I have created programming for live-streaming on my Twitch channel towards unknowing each day through December 5th as follows:
