Joel Sternfeld - Luhring Augustine

Joel Sternfeld
Born 1944

Joel Sternfeld
<i>McLean</i>, Virginia, December 1978
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>The Space Shuttle Columbia Lands at Kelly Air Force Base</i>, San Antonio, Texas, March 1979
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Exhausted Renegade Elephant</i>, Woodland, Washington, June 1979
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Bear Lake</i>, Utah, July 1979
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>After A Flash Flood, Rancho Mirage</i>, California 1979
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Sauvies Island</i>, Oregon, June 1979
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital C-Print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Approximately 17 of 41 Sperm Whales That Beached and Subsequently Died</i>, Florence, Oregon, June 1979
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Yellowstone National Park</i>, August 1979
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>After a Tornado</i>, Grande Isle, Nebraska, June 1980
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Swift River, White Mountain National Forest</i>, New Hampshire, July 1980
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Wet n' Wild Aquatic Theme Park</i>, Orlando, Florida, September 1980
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Coeburn</i>, Virginia, April 1981
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Glen Canyon Dam<i>, Page, Arizona, 1983
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Grafton</i>, West Virginia, February 1983
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

<i>Bikini Contest</i>, Fort Lauderdale, FL, March 1983
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Domestic Workers Waiting for the Bus</i>, Atlanta Georgia, April 1983
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Blind Man in His Garden</i>, Homer, Alaska, June 1984
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Abandoned Freighter</i>, Homer, Alaska, July 1984
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Matanuska Glacier</i>, Matanuska Valley, Alaska, July 1984
from <i>American Prospects</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 10 with 2 artist's proofs
Image size: 42 x 52 1/2 inches
Paper size: 48 x 58 1/2 inches

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Man on the Banks of the Mississippi<i>, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, August 1985
From <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
36 1/4 X 45 3/4 inches (92.08 X 116.21 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Tourist at the South Street Seaport</i>, New York, New York, July 1987
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
36 X 45 1/2 inches (91.44 X 115.57 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Summer Interns Having Lunch</i>, Wall Street, New York, New York, August 1987
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
36 X 45 1/2 inches (91.44 X 115.57 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Farmer Taking a Break</i>, Iowa, She has Cancer of the Thyroid, November 1987</i>
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
45 3/4 X 36 1/4 inches (116.21 X 92.08 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Man at O'Hare Airport</i>, Chicago, Illinois, July 1988
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
36 X 45 1/2 inches (91.44 X 115.57 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Woman at Home in Malibu After Exercising</i>, California August 1988</i>
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
46 1/2 X 38 inches (118.11 X 96.52 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Woman Out Shopping with Her Pet Rabbit</i>, Santa Monica, California, August 1988
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
36 1/4 X 45 3/4 inches (92.08 X 116.21 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Lawyer with Laundry</i>, New York, New York, October 1988
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
36 1/4 X 45 3/4 inches (92.08 X 116.21 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Woman with Her Artwork</i>, Portland, Maine, August 1992
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
36 X 45 1/2 inches (91.44 X 115.57 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Young Man Gathering Shopping Carts</i>, Huntington, NY, July 1993
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
36 X 45 1/2 inches (91.44 X 115.57 cm)

<i>A Homeless Man With His Bedding</i>, New York, New York, July 1994
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
45 1/2 X 36 inches (91.44 X 115.57 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Tourist in Greenwich Village</i>, New York, New York, October 1995
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
45 1/2 X 36 inches (91.44 X 115.57 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Two Men on Vacation in Bigfork, Montana</i>, July 1998
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
45 1/2 X 36 inches (91.44 X 115.57 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Man Waiting for a Tow Truck to Take His Car to a Demolition Derby at the County Fair</i>, South Hadley, Massachusetts, September 1998
The Tow Truck Never Came and He Was Unable to Race That Year
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
36 X 45 1/2 inches (91.44 X 115.57 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Runner on the Banks of Lake Austin</i>, Austin, Texas, February 1999</i>
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
36 1/4 X 45 3/4 inches (92.08 X 116.21 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>High School Prom at the Hilton</i>, San Antonio, Texas, April 1999
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
36 X 45 1/2 inches (91.44 X 115.57 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Boys Walking Home After School</i>, Harrisonburg, Virginia, May 1999
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
36 X 45 1/2 inches (91.44 X 115.57 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Man Stepping into the Cab of His Truck</i>, The Bottoms, Kansas City, Missouri, June 1999
from <i>Stranger Passing</i>
Ektacolor print mounted on plexi
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
36 X 45 1/2 inches (91.44 X 115.57 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Central Park, north of the Obelisk, behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art</i>, New York, May 1993</i>
from <i>On this Site</i>
C-Print
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
18 1/2 X 23 inches (46.99 X 58.42 cm)

Jennifer Levin and Robert Chambers were seen leaving Dorrian’s Red Hand, an Upper East Side bar, at 4:30 A.M. on August 26, 1986. Her body was found beneath this crab apple tree in Central Park at 6:15 A.M. that same morning. An autopsy revealed that she had been strangled. She was eighteen years old when she died. Chambers, who was nineteen at the same time of the crime, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter.

Joel Sternfeld
<i>The National Civil Rights Museum, formerly the Lorraine Motel, 450 Mulberry Street</i>, Memphis, Tennessee, August 1993</i>
from <i>On this Site</i>
C-print
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
18 1/2 X 23 inches (46.99 X 58.42 cm)

Speaking at a rally on April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said:

Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

The next day, he was assassinated on this balcony outside room 306.

Joel Sternfeld
<i>The Northwest Corner of Florence and Normandie Avenues</i>, Los Angeles, CA, October 1993</i>
from <i>On this Site</i>
C-print
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
18 1/2 X 23 inches (46.99 X 58.42 cm)

On April 29, 1992, four white police officers on trial for the beating of motorist Rodney King were acquitted. A videotape of King’s beating had been extensively televised. The not guilty verdicts became a catalyst for widespread civil unrest.

Riots began with several mob assaults at this intersection. Reginald Denny, a white truck driver, was pulled from his truck and severely beaten as a camera crew broadcast the event live from a news helicopter.

The Los Angeles Riots caused more than fifty deaths and an estimated one billion dollars worth of damage.

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Aisle 2, Row 3, Seat 5, Texas Theatre, 231 West Jefferson Boulevard</i>, Dallas, Texas, November 1993</i>
from <i>On this Site</i>
C-print
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
18 1/2 X 23 inches (46.99 X 58.42 cm)

Lee Harvey Oswald was sitting in this seat when he was arrested by Dallas police at 1:50 P.M., November 22, 1963. The double feature playing that day was <i>Cry of Battle</i> and <i>War Is Hell</i>.

Joel Sternfeld
<i>The Stonewall Inn, 53 Christopher Street</i>, New York, February 1994</i>
from <i>On this Site</i>
C-print
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
18 1/2 X 23 inches (46.99 X 58.42 cm)

Patrons of this gay bar were arrested and beaten in a routine early morning police raid on June 28, 1969. In the nights that followed, hundreds of men and women demonstrated in the streets of Greenwich Village, despite the continued threat of police violence. These events came ot be known as the Stonewall Rebellion.

Joel Sternfeld
<i>518 101st Street, Love Canal Neighborhood, Niagara Falls</i>, New York, May 1994</i>
from <i>On this Site</i>
C-print
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
18 1/2 X 23 inches (46.99 X 58.42 cm)

From the 1920s through the 1950s, the city of Niagara Falls, the United States Army, and the Hooker Chemical Corporation dumped over two hundred different toxic chemicals into Love Canal. Many of them contained dioxin, one of the most lethal chemicals known. In 1953, Hooker Chemical covered the then-dry Love Canal with a thin layer of dirt, and sold it to the Niagara Falls Board of Education for one dollar. The terms of the sale stipulated that if anyone incurred physical harm or death because of the buried waste, Hooker could not be held liable. A school was constructed on the site of the waste dump and private homes were built nearby.

In the late 1970s, an unusually high number of birth defects, miscarriages, cancers, and other illnesses were reported in the Love Canal neighborhood by the Niagara Falls Gazette. Lois Gibbs, whose two children developed rare blood disorders, led a successful grassroots campaign to have the state of New York purchase the homes of five hundred families, enabling them to relocate.

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Supervisor Dan White's former office, Room 235, City Hall</i>, San Francisco, California, July 1994</i>
from <i>On this Site</i>
C-print
Edition of 7 with 3 artist's proofs
18 1/2 X 23 inches (46.99 X 58.42 cm)

A year before he died, Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the United States, made a tape recording to be played in the event of his assassination. He said “ I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for, an activist, a gay activist, becomes the target or potential target for a person who is insecure, terrified, afraid, or very disturbed with themselves.”

On November 27,1978, Dan White shot and killed Mayor George Moscone and then came down the hall and shot Supervisor Milk in this office. White had been denied re-appointment to the Board of Supervisors after a previous resignation, due in part to his
disagreements with Milk.

Dan White was convicted of manslaughter and served five years, one month, and thirteen days in prison before his release in 1984. An expert at his trial testified that excessive consumption of junk food and sugar contributed to White’s behavior. Dan White Committed suicide in 1985.

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Grape Hyacinth</i>, April 2000
from <i>High Line</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
39 1/2 X 50 inches (100.33 X 127 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Railroad Artifact, 30th Street, May 2000</i>
from <i>High Line</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
39 1/2 X 50 inches (100.33 X 127 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Looking South on a May Evening (the Starrett-Lehigh Building), May 2000</i>
from <i>High Line</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
39 1/2 X 50 inches (100.33 X 127 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Looking East on 30th Street on a Morning in May</i>, May, 2000
from <i>High Line</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
39 1/2 X 50 inches (100.33 X 127 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Ailanthus Trees, 25th Street</i>, May 2000
from <i>High Line</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
39 1/2 X 50 inches (100.33 X 127 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Looking West on 30th Street on a September Evening</i>, 2000</i>
from <i>High Line</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
39 1/2 X 50 inches (100.33 X 127 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Looking South at 27th Street</i>, September 2000</i>
from <i>High Line</i>
Digital c-print
from an edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
39 1/2 X 50 inches (100.33 X 127 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Peach Tree</i>, October 2000
from <i>High Line</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
39 1/2 X 50 inches (100.33 X 127 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A View Toward the Empire State Building</i>, November 2000</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
39 1/2 X 50 inches (100.33 X 127 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Looking South towards Chelsea Markets</i>, December 2000
from <i>High Line</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
39 1/2 X 50 inches (100.33 X 127 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Ken Robson's Christmas Tree</i>, January 2001
from <i>High Line</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
39 1/2 X 50 inches (100.33 X 127 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A View Towards the Hudson</i>, February, 2001
from <i>High Line</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
39 1/2 X 50 inches (100.33 X 127 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>A Spring Evening, the Hudson</i>, May 2001
from <i>High Line</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
39 1/2 X 50 inches (100.33 X 127 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Queen Anne's Lace, July 2001</i>
from <i>High Line</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
39 1/2 X 50 inches (100.33 X 127 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Paolo Soleri at Arcosanti, Cordes Junction</i>, Arizona, August 2000
from <i>Sweet Earth</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
26 1/2 x 33 1/4 (67.31 x 84.46 cm)

Throughout the twentieth century, architects have been particularly ready to offer their visions of an idealized urban future. For Le Corbusier, a “Radiant City” would be appropriate to the machine age, providing a highly efficient and organized grid to facilitate modern life. For Frank Lloyd Wright, it was critical that everyone have their own patch of earth on which to realize their individuality: thus his “Broadacre City” not only necessitated personal land to live on, but a car to get there. The Italian-born architect Paolo Soleri is far less well-known to the public than Le Corbusier or Wright, but in the Arizona desert he is quietly building what is perhaps the world’s only true prototype of a futurist city.

Arcosanti is an “Arcology,” a word used by Soleri to describe the harmonious marriage of architecture and ecology. Unlike Wright, with whom he studied, Soleri believes that it is the physical dispersal in the landscape permitted by the automobile that has led to moral and spiritual dispersal in society. By contrast, Arcosanti, planned for five thousand inhabitants, will occupy only two percent of the land normally taken up by a suburban development. Residents work no more than a ten-minute walk from their homes, eliminating the need for cars within the city—consistent with Soleri’s prophecy of the eventual extinction of the automobile. Reminiscent of the historic center of Italian cities, every aspect of Arcosanti’s design, including numerous balconies, terraces and piazzas, encourages a maximum of social interaction.

Soleri is also critical of excessive consumption of resources. To avoid wasting materials, gardens, solar heating and natural cooling move the community toward self-sufficiency.

Arcosanti has been under construction for thirty-five years, self-funded by the sale of distinctive wind chimes and bells that are forged on site. It is being built by students and volunteers—progress is at once achingly slow and surprisingly fast. Visitors will find a substantial and unusual small community of about fifty permanent residents, and significant glimpses of a city that feels ancient and futuristic as it rises.

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Runis of Drop City, Trinidad</i>, Colorado, August 1995
from <i>Sweet Earth</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
26 1/2 x 33 1/4 (67.31 x 84.46 cm)

Three of the original founders of Drop City met as art students in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1961. They referred to their practice of painting rocks and dropping them from a loft window onto the busy street below as “Drop Art.”

By 1965 the founders’ desire to live rent free and create art without the distraction of employment led them to a six acre goat pasture outside Trinidad, Colorado, which they purchased for $450. Naming their community after their gravity-driven art was the easy part; building it a little harder. But having recently attended a lecture by Buckminster
Fuller and now joined by a would-be dome builder from Albuquerque, they began with scrap materials and visionary optimism. Sheet metal was stripped off car roofs (for which they paid a nickel or a dime) and attached to the grid of a dome. These building materials not only provided shelter, but they also emblemized the group’s refusal to participate in consumerist society. Money, clothing and cars were shared, and they lived as quasi-dumpster divers.

Initially the community flourished. With a core group of twelve, it functioned as the founders had intended, a hotbed of art- making. But a steady flow of publicity in underground and mainstream media, encouraged by resident Peter Rabbit, led to a torrent of guests. It has been reported that Bob Dylan, Timothy Leary and Jim Morrison visited, but the historian’s chestnut, the primary account, may be less than reliable when it comes to the 1960s. By the time the community decided to abandon its open-door policy, it was too late: the founding members had left, and conditions had taken hold that would bring about a final dissolution in 1973. In 1978 the site was sold; proceeds helped rent space in New York City for exhibitions of the group’s work and to publish it in Crisscross magazine.

The domes sat on the land of A. Blasi and Sons Trucking Company until recently, when they succumbed to gravity.

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Queen of the Prom, the Range Nightclub, Slab City</i>, California, March 2005
from <i>Sweet Earth</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
26 1/2 x 33 1/4 (67.31 x 84.46 cm)

When Camp Dunlap, a World War II Marine training facility near Niland, California, was closed in 1946, all of the buildings were completely dismantled, leaving numerous cement foundation slabs in the desert.

Almost as soon as the government abandoned the site, “snowbirds” (campers from northern states in recreational vehicles) began to winter on the slabs, even though no running water, electricity or sewage facilities were available. Today at least five thousand snowbirds arrive each winter, and a few have become permanent year-round residents,
despite summer temperatures that can reach 120 degrees. The snowbirds come with motor homes costing half a million dollars and they come with tents.

Over the years, a true self-governing community has arisen, including a mayor, the Slab City Christian Church (in a trailer), the Lizard Tree Library (used paperbacks on an honor system), the Gopher Flats Country Club (gravel greens), the Oasis Social Club (combination meeting space/junkyard), a CB radio station (one half hour of purely local news, nightly at six p.m.) and the Range, an outdoor nightclub built by “Builder Bill,” complete with stage, lighting, bar, communal outhouse and several rows of salvaged airliner seats. The Range takes its name from an active bombing range located a few miles away, which makes the sight and sound of F-16 sorties a part of life at the Slabs.

Moira, the Queen of the 2005 Prom at the Range, never got to go to her high school prom.

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Lake Tuendae</i>, Zzyzx Springs, California, March 2005
from <i>Sweet Earth</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
26 1/2 x 33 1/4 (67.31 x 84.46 cm)

Curtis Howe “Doc” Springer called himself a physician and a Methodist minister, although he was neither. He created the name “Zzyzx” for the health resort he built in the Mojave Desert, hoping it would be the “last word” in resorts. Zzyzx was a Christian resort predicated upon a belief in the curative powers of its mineral waters—and the destructiveness of alcohol and arguing. Smoking, however, was acceptable everywhere but the dining room, bathhouse, sundeck and pool area (the prohibition in these areas related to concerns about the hazard of combining bare feet and burning cigarette butts).

The project began in 1944 when Springer filed a mining claim on an area of land eight miles long by three miles wide on the site of Hancock’s Redoubt, an 1860 army outpost. Using laborers from skid row in Los Angeles, whom he paid with food and showers, he built a hotel on the street he called the Boulevard of Dreams, an airport (Zyport), and a health spa that included a cross-shaped pool and a mechanical exercise horse that had been in the White House during the presidency of Calvin Coolidge.

Zzyzx also had a radio station from which Doc Springer’s nightly broadcasts were beamed to 221 radio stations in the US and 102 abroad. On the air Springer played religious music, preached his folksy religious philosophy, and sold his quack curative products: Hollywood Pep Tonic; Antediluvian Desert Tea, a peppermint herb brew; Zy-Pac, mineral salts from the bed of Lake Tuendae, which users were directed to rub on the scalp, then bend over and hold their breath as long as possible; and Mo-Hair, a purported baldness cure.

It was Mo-Hair that particularly incurred the ire of the American Medical Association and was instrumental in Springer’s 1969 arrest and sixty-day jail sentence. At the same time, the IRS, the FDA and the Bureau of Land Management began legal proceedings against him.

In 1974, Springer and a few hundred of his followers were ejected from Zzyzx, despite his willingness to pay the government $34,187 owed in back rent. He died in Las Vegas in 1986 at the age of ninety. Zzyzx is now referred to by its earliest name, Soda Springs, and is used as the Desert Studies Center of the California State University system. Lake Tuendae has been discovered to be the home of a tiny endangered fish, the Mojave Tui Chub.

Joel Sternfeld
<i>An Earthship at Earthaven Ecovillage</i>, Black Mountain, North Carolina, April 2005
from <i>Sweet Earth</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
26 1/2 x 33 1/4 (67.31 x 84.46 cm)

Earthships, invented by American architect M. K. Reynolds, derive their name from his idea of them as “independent vessels to sail on the seas of tomorrow.” They are generally made from tires filled with rammed earth, though sometimes of bottles and cans. They are often configured to maximize the surface area on which solar panels can be placed and typically have rain catchments and a filtration system for water (the circular object seen at the corner of the building is a cistern). Not visible in this photograph is an all-glass south facing wall. In the winter when the sun is low in the sky, sunlight pours through it directly into the home. The warmth that results is retained by the high insulating coefficient of the three earthen walls enabling the house to be sixty-eight degrees with minimal heating. In the summer, when the sun is overhead, the cool earthen walls maintain sixty-eight with little or no additional cooling. This home is sited so that on December twenty-first the sun is just over the horizon of the ridge to the east.

The house is one of numerous innovative structures that comprise Earthaven Ecovillage. Because Earthaven’s 320 acres are mostly mountainous forest, all dwellings are built on slopes, leaving flat ground available to become agricultural fields. Though still under construction, Earthaven has been completely off the grid since its inception in 1994. The central village is powered by a micro-hydro system and the water supply comes from a natural spring and is stored in a ten thousand-gallon water tank. Homes in the community are built of natural or recycled materials, and the entire site has been planned as a model of permaculture design.

Members pay annual dues, share title to the land and participate in a consensus decision-making process. Each community member is responsible for earning his or her own living. The village-scale economy includes numerous ecologically sound businesses, such as Red Moon Herbs and Permaculture Activist and Communities magazines.

The community doesn’t have a single village-wide spiritual practice. “What many of us have in common is a reverence for the Earth and our land, and the belief that our land is alive and conscious and it’s our sacred duty to honor and care for it.”

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Arcadia Cohousing</i>, Carrboro, North Carolina, April 2005
from <i>Sweet Earth</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
26 1/2 x 33 1/4 (67.31 x 84.46 cm)

The home of Giles Blunden is independent of the public power grid. The solar panels visible on his roof provide electricity and heat water. Blunden is the chief architect and founder of Arcadia Homes, a sustainable cohousing community in which all thirty-three residences have passive solar design (non-mechanical solar heating achieved through site selection and large south-facing windows) and some active solar elements (collecting the sun’s rays by appropriate technology to provide heat, mechanical power or electricity).

In addition to its solar features, Arcadia is a pedestrian-friendly community that preserved nine acres of climax hardwood forest when it was built, by clustering houses on land covered with secondary- growth pine trees. The distinctive architecture of the community derives from vernacular local millhouse structures.

In 2003 the share of all electricity produced by solar cell technology in the US was 0.07 percent—though as far back as 1979 President Jimmy Carter announced (at a press conference held on the White House roof) the goal of bringing sun, wind and other renewable resources-generated electricity to twenty percent of the US total by the year 2000. In contrast, Japan, where fossil fuels are much more expensive, generated four times the amount of solar electricity produced in the US.

As solar power approaches a cost of $2 per watt, it is becoming less expensive than commercial power. Thirty-eight states, including North Carolina, have enacted “net metering” laws that require utilities to connect residential solar panels into the grid and to compensate homeowners for any excess electricity they produce.

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Twelve Tribes Community</i>, Basin Farm, Bellows Falls, Vermont, June 2005
from <i>Sweet Earth</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
26 1/2 x 33 1/4 (67.31 x 84.46 cm)

Twelve Tribes is a religious group that believes it is “the restoration of the Messianic Jewish New Testament Community of the first century A.D.” Members adhere as closely as possible to both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible: immediately after a boy is bar mitzvahed at Basin Farm, he is baptized in the nearby Saxton’s River.

Founded in Tennessee in the early 1970s, the group’s modern history began in 1977, when several hundred members moved to the small northern Vermont town of Island Pond and took the official name Northeast Kingdom Community Church.

Opposition occurred almost immediately. At the center of the controversy surrounding the group, which now has about twenty-five hundred members in nine countries, is their belief in the corporal punishment of children. Spanking is considered God’s remedy for disobedience, and when necessary it should be administered with a thin wooden dowel, producing a stinging sensation in the admonished child, who should not cry and who should, upon completion of the process, thank the disciplining parent.

Allegations of child abuse first surfaced in the early 1980s when a former member, Juan Mattatall, sought custody of his five children, who remained in the group with their mother. Despite substantial evidence of his pedophilia, Mattatall won the case. The children then spent much of their childhood in orphanages and foster homes, as their father was charged with sex crimes. His life ended in 1990 when his mother shot and killed him in order to stop the grief he was causing.

In June 1984, state troopers raided members’ houses at Island Pond, seizing 112 children. When the matter came to court and no evidence of abuse was found, the children were returned to their parents. These occurrences and one or two other custody battles have created an environment of suspicion that plagues the Twelve Tribes Community around the world.

Referring to the Mattatall case, the Religious Movements Project of the University of Virginia found it to be a demonstration of what can happen when raw fear, personal animosity and prejudice toward unconventional religious groups is allowed to run roughshod over law, religious tolerance and reason. Finding “unequivocal evidence of a campaign to manufacture and disseminate misinformation about the group,” the Project notes that almost every new religion experiences some level of conflict with the larger society. “How they balance the tension between their unique message and the suspicions of the broader culture will play a large role in determining whether they survive beyond a first generation of believers.”

Joel Sternfeld
<i>Andy Wilson, Evelyn Edson, Tom and Ruth Klippstein at Springtree Commune</i>, Scottsville,
from <i>Sweet Earth</i>
Virginia, April 2005
Digital c-print
Edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
26 1/2 x 33 1/4 (67.31 x 84.46 cm)

The eight founders of Springtree first met at a Twin Oaks community conference in 1971. They all had children and wanted to build a community centered around them. By pooling their resources, they were able to purchase one hundred acres along the Hardnose River in Virginia, naming their new home for the old poplar tree that stood at the head of a clear spring. Each year, the founding of the community is celebrated there.

At its peak, Springtree was home to fifteen adults and fifteen children. It was, and still is, a close-knit intentional community in which ownership of land, homes and income is shared equally—a single checkbook still serves all. There is no leader or hierarchy. As a group they have never had an ambition for larger social change or commercial success, focusing instead on living well together (some might say their way of life is social change). Home schooling was a key element, and each child had an adult read with him or her nightly.

Not only did the group initially live together in the large house that they built, they also vacationed together. They drove by school bus to the outer banks of North Carolina and camped. The annual trip to the beach now functions as a reunion for Springtree members, their children and grandchildren.

Time and change have slowly eroded the community’s numbers—two couples and an occasional intern live at Springtree today, sharing meals and conversation, and working in the garden and orchards together. An extensive calendar of visits from and to the world at large often interrupts the routine of farm work.

Asked what she was thinking when this group portrait was made, Ruth Klippstein responded, “Though I’m not very smiley in the picture, I imagine I was thinking the main thoughts that make me happy: this is my place, these are my people. It’s great to be rooted.”

Joel Sternfeld
<i>The East Meadows</i>, Northampton, Massachusetts, April 19, 2007</i>
from <i>Oxbow Archive</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 3 and 2 artist proofs
72 X 88 1/2 inches (182.88 X 224.79 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i> The East Meadows</i>, Northampton, Massachusetts, March 27, 2007</i>
from <i>Oxbow Archive</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 3 and 2 artist proofs
72 X 88 1/2 inches (182.88 X 224.79 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>The East Meadows</i>, Northampton, Massachusetts, March 24, 2006</i>
from <i>Oxbow Archive</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 3 and 2 artist proofs
72 X 88 1/2 inches (182.88 X 224.79 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>The East Meadows</i>, Northampton, Massachusetts, April 20, 2007</i>
from <i>Oxbow Archive</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 3 and 2 artist proofs
72 X 88 1/2 inches (182.88 X 224.79 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>The East Meadows</i>, Northampton, Massachusetts, March 13, 2006</i>
from <i>Oxbow Archive</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 3 plus 2 artist proofs
72 X 88 1/2 inches (182.88 X 224.79 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>The East Meadows, Northampton, Massachusetts, March 30, 2006</i>
from <i>Oxbow Archive</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 3 and 2 artist proofs
72 X 88 1/2 inches (182.88 X 224.79 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>The East Meadows, Northampton, Massachusetts, July 29, 2005</i>
from <i>Oxbow Archive</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 3 and 2 artist proofs
72 X 88 1/2 inches (182.88 X 224.79 cm)

Joel Sternfeld
<i>The East Meadows, Northampton, Massachusetts, December 14, 2006</i>
from <i>Oxbow Archive</i>
Digital c-print
Edition of 3 and 2 artist proofs
72 X 88 1/2 inches (182.88 X 224.79 cm)

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