Lost & Found; Artist Residency project at Rancho Santa Clara Del Norte, Saticoy, CA
Updated: 4 days ago
Lost and Found
Adobe brick wall installation for Rancho Santa Clara del Norte (Lloyd-Butler Ranch)
native clay soil, local river sand, rancho-grown cropcover grass, found natural and man-made objects
10’l x 8’h x 6’d
Land+Sky Artist Residency, June-October 2026
The labor of processing and assembling adobe bricks is the most physical art installation act I have ever committed. Working mostly alone over the summer, each day began with a deep breath and taking in the surrounding sounds and scents before sinking into the rhythm of a working rancho. On their way to pollinate purple basil, small jewels of insects buzz by, mingling with the airwaves—a distant cacophony of laughter and Spanish chatter of the pickers in the orchards, combined with the inevitable um-pa-pa music and occasional crunch of tractor tires over road gravel. Working alongside the hired hands through the grinding heat of summer, I end the day thirsty, covered in sweat and grime, grateful for a shower, and craving a meal of locally grown produce. You cannot cross the Oxnard plains without a heaping portion of respect for the folks who grow our food.
Even as summer shifts into autumn, time passes almost unnoticed with only ripening fruit, shifting shadows, and the morning marine layer as references. The sense of history is palpable here, and there are signs of life everywhere, both past and present. My mind wanders further back in time; I think about the Chumash who lived from the land for millennia before European settlers, and what their food-gathering routines might have been. Hoisting the heavy adobe bricks over my head, I am also reminded of their forced labor to construct the Western religious structures in adobe, and in my fatigue I am struck with intense despair. Soil ecology is evident everywhere you look; small clam shells fall out of the dirt I manipulate. Now powdery and dry, it transports me back millions of years; I imagine a settled sub-marine layer during the Miocene epoch, when coastal creatures dwelled much farther inland in the Central Valley. Would I be lucky enough to find a fossil pecten that has tumbled down a mountainside?
Yet here I am recycling and reconstructing anthropological layers with the same soil made millions of years ago. The rancho holds pockets of “tierra negra,” the black clay soil used in the adobe bricks to construct the original residence here, long since buried inside the stately Edwardian manor house. Processing the soil and combing through dumpsite areas on the property revealed traces of years of habitation tumbling out of the earth. Humans are not the only species to manipulate their environments, evidenced by black mustard and earthworms, which change the soil chemically to outcompete native species. During the final days of construction and weighing the impending El Niño winter rains, the field workers were pruning the lemon groves, perfuming the air with the potential for regeneration. I am fascinated by the earth’s cycles of renewal, its seemingly endless gift of growth, as well as the effect humans impart on the land. I built this wall as a living relic and monument to soil, the unsung hero for its ability to sustain, protect, and nourish us with“earthly delights.” Will our modern middens* of pollution forever change the future earth and its ability to regenerate? Or will the earth and its inhabitants adapt and survive as they have for millions of years?
Scavenger hunt of found objects lost in dirt:
❍ rusty metal scraps
❍ rusted pipe flange
❍ vintage metal gaskets
❍ coiled spring
❍ metal spray can
❍ automotive shock piston
❍ broken pottery
❍ abalone ‘fossil’ and other mollusk replicas of bisque-fired reclaimed clay
❍ Pectens, scallop shell fossil replicas of bisque-fired wild clay
❍ pre-fossilized pecten shells
❍ hand-crafted bowl with wild clay glaze
❍ bivalve mollusk shells
❍ coyote jaw bone cast
❍ coyote footprint, bisque-fired wild soil
❍ mummified frog
❍ Native American midden* replica
❍ artist’s maker's mark
❍ bowl glazed with wild clay
❍ safety glasses
❍ trucker’s cap remnant
❍ irrigation hose
❍ antique window
❍ vintage brick pieces
❍ broken bottle glass
❍ unidentified plastic objects
❍ old fabric remnants
❍ frayed hay bale twine
❍ ocean glass
❍ Mr. Potatohead plastic arm
❍ land snail shells
❍ rusty nail and machinery placard
*A midden is an old dump for domestic waste, often consisting of animal bones, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, or other artifacts and biofacts associated with past human occupation.
Photo gallery
View through the coffee plants of the main Lloyd-Butler estate house from the citrus groves Taking the Kubota mule on a reconnaissance ride soil samples and testing for clay content settled 'tierra negra' soil collecting crop cover chop from the avocado groves in the company of chickens, making adobe brick tests adobe bricks drying in the molds finished adobe bricks, too numerous to count adobe brick details, found objects embedded in the bricks original adobe house roof tiles the clearing in the citrus groves Ramiro and Berne; helpers for the foundation 
time lapse video of wall construction 
time lapse video of wall construction finished adobe wall with vintage window finished adobe wall and corner details of adobe wall local residents on the rancho local residents on the rancho life emerges from the soil details of adobe wall, evidence of human presence looking through the adobe window past and present details of adobe wall, evidence of human presence details of adobe wall, evidence of human presence
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