The Artist Way
Interviews by Jason Ball
Photographs by Desert Luxe Studios
FIVE LOCAL ARTISTS.
FIVE DISTINCT POINTS OF VIEW.
ONE DESERT THAT REFUSES TO REMAIN IN THE BACKGROUND
There is something about this desert.
Perhaps it is the light, sharp enough to reveal every texture, and soft enough to turn the mountains pink at dusk. Perhaps it is the silence, the vastness, or the peculiar beauty of a landscape that appears still while quietly changing by the hour. Whatever the source, greater Palm Springs has an energy that calls to creative people. And once it has your attention, it rarely lets go.
Artists have long been drawn here by the dramatic geography, rich cultural history, and freedom that comes with living a little differently. The desert offers space to think, permission to experiment, and a landscape that can feel ancient, futuristic, and wonderfully surreal, sometimes all before lunch.
Creativity is woven throughout the Coachella Valley. It lives inside museums, galleries, and artists’ studios, but it also spills into the open air through monumental installations, modernist architecture, murals, performance, music, and public art. Here, a walk through town can become an exhibition, a house can become a sculpture, and an empty stretch of land can become a canvas.
That creative spirit is inseparable from the people who have shaped this place. Indigenous history, Hollywood glamour, architectural innovation, and generations of LGBTQ+ influence have each left their mark. Together, they have created a cultural landscape as layered and unexpected as the desert itself.
Yet the real story is not simply that artists come here. It is what happens after they arrive.
How does this environment enter their work? Does the solitude sharpen their vision? Does the landscape influence their color, scale, material, or subject? And what does it mean to create in a place where beauty can feel both overwhelming and beautifully unfinished?
For the Paradise Issue, Oasis introduces five local artists whose work reflects the imagination, individuality, and restless creative energy of greater Palm Springs. Their practices and perspectives may differ, but each has developed a personal relationship with this extraordinary place.
These are the people translating the desert into something we can see, feel, and remember.
This is their artist way.
Louis Carreon
“The desert has pushed me to go inward and paint with more peace than I did when my studio was in Los Angeles.”
Shag
Few artists are as closely associated with Palm Springs as SHAG. His colorful, stylized scenes have helped define the city’s modern mythology, a world of architecture, cocktails, pools and desert glamour where reality is often just the starting point.
Ariel Vargassal
For Ariel Vargassal, art can confront a complicated world while still making room for beauty and joy. In Palm Springs, he has found a landscape and community that encourage both.
Emeline Tate
For Emeline Tate, inspiration comes less from the desert landscape than from the life she has built within it. After two decades in Palm Springs, she has found community, creative freedom and an unmistakable sign that
she is home.
Ramon Reyes
Born in Venezuela, Ramon Reyes knows what it means to leave one home and
create another. In Palm Springs, he has found a landscape that feels familiar, a place where desert and lush greenery coexist, and where isolation
Ron Valdez
Ron Valdez has spent nearly three decades learning what makes art valuable—and discovering that price may be the least interesting part.
