A 70-year-old California homesteader’s shack near Joshua Tree national park is now a light installation, Lucid Stead.
When architect Michael Graham Richard talked to artist Phillip K. Smith about the work, Smith explained, “Lucid Stead is about tapping into the quiet and the pace of change of the desert. When you slow down and align yourself with the desert, the project begins to unfold before you. It reveals that it is about light and shadow, reflected light, projected light, and change.”
To Richard, the disappearing act that Lucid Stead achieves with reflections is a revelation. “Sometimes the best way to be part of the landscape is to blend into it,” he says. “Animals have been using camouflage for millions of years for survival, but there can also be aesthetic reasons to want to disappear, at least a little.”
In Smith’s creation, he continues, “the desert itself is used as a material,” as is reflected light. Check out a slide show here , at Treehugger.com, which highlights the artist’s use of solar power. Be sure to note how amazing the “shack” looks at night (slides 7-9).
Photo: Steven King, Phillip K Smith, III/royale projects contemporary art
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
How nice! A childhood friend wrote that this post really resonated with her today as she is traveling in the same part of the country as the Lucid Stead. Here’s what she e-mailed to Suzanne’s Mom: “I so enjoyed today’s amazing photos. For several days now Tom and I have been en route from our property in southern Utah to the one in northern California. This morning we started in Las Vegas and took a remote route across the Nevada desert and up the eastern side of the Sierras to Bridgeport CA. Most of our journey took us through vast stretches of empty country, dotted at 20 mile intervals by abandoned hardscrabble homesteads. How I wish one of them had been the Lucid homestead. It is beautiful beyond belief.”