A Land Art Project Materializes By Owens Lake

Plaza shade structure constructed for the NUVIS Owens Lake landscape project (T30-1). | Photo: Christopher Langley.

Editor note: This is the second in a series of articles on Perry Cardozas land art project in the Owens Valley, read the first article here.

If landscape as an entity does not exist -- if it is in all cases a mental construct -- then these earthworks are, among other things, the means of re-presenting a particular place. The appearance of that place becomes a part of the content of the work, whether in photographs or in reality, and whether the artists intend it fully, partially, or not at all.

-- Elizabeth C. Baker, Artworks on the Land in Art In the Land: A Critical Anthology of Environmental Art, edited by Alan Sonfist

My first impression was as if I just landed on Mars, landscape architect Perry Cardoza says of the first time he visited Owens Lake, the large dry desert lake that Los Angeles Department of Water and Power drained by the 1920s via the L.A. Aqueduct, precipitating the Owens Valley Water Wars. Cardoza continues, The scale of the playa, the smells, the exposure, the lack of plant material and shade... I could go on and on. Eventually he came up with a two-part land art installation made up of a central plaza, and surrounding paths and roads called Owens Lake Trails.

I spent an early fall morning with Cardoza as he worked with the contractors on tweaking the realization of his complex designs on the alien, and severely altered landscape of this dwindling Pleistocene lake in the Upper Mojave desert. The sink of the lake lies in the slowly sinking Owens Valley floor, geologically called a graben. On either side, the Sierra Nevada and Inyo Mountains rise to create what many have called the deepest valley. Cardoza had been awarded the large task of creating an installation on this lake. He goes on, After spending some time on the playa, I started to imagine what if? I have to say having clients that allow design to flow naturally and to have an open mind on how we interpreted dust mitigation and habitat creation was astonishing.

Owens Lake trails designed as part of the NUVIS Owens Lake landscape project (T30-1). | Photo: Christopher Langley.

Before this land art and bird habitat installation could be, there was the Owens Lake Master Plan Committee, a group of user groups and stakeholders that included LADWP, State Land Commission, Inyo County, and various environmental groups that met regularly at the lake and in Bishop, California. It was like a crash course in everything Owens Lake with the goal of creating a plan to address the many challenges the lake presents and the California Supreme Court had ordered be addressed.

Then the DWP withdrew and everyone that had worked so hard wondered if DWP was actually going to walk away. Later Los Angeles announced its own Owens Lake Master Project in a 32-page proposal. Much of the work of the preexisting committee was incorporated and although much had to be fleshed out, many of the previous participants were cautiously optimistic. The goals were specifically laid out: control dust; protect, create and enhance habitat; protect cultural resources; promote area-wide economic development; renewable energy exploration; create a flexible adaptive management plan; and reduce total lake-wide water use. The report included two pages of Public Use Studies with the NUVIS Landscape Architecture logo at the bottom. Even then, the installation was in the development stage.

Kiosk constructed for the NUVIS Owens Lake landscape project (T30-1). | Photo: Christopher Langley.

Other aesthetic documentation in the paper included Colors of the playa, Species Guilds (the birds) and Preferred Habitat Conditions for the six identified bird guilds. There were also four waterless dust control methods named: brine, gravel cover, non-uniform meandering ridges; and tillage. Many of the pieces of the final art land project were already identified there.

Cardoza and his team planned for their relatively small part of the entire lake project and drew from various sources of inspiration: Our NUVIS team had an abundance of inspiration, he said. From nature. we looked at how the wave patterns were left behind in the sand and how we could incorporate this into our design. We considered looking at the interesting forms we saw when looking at the salt crystals and salt grass under a microscope. We considered colors from the playa, and the local bird life.

Both the birds and historical perspective were used in developing the project. The snowy plover is a key inspiration for our design, he said. The birds are especially present in the plaza and shade areas at the center of the project. Historical photographs and images helped shape our concept as well as the Native American culture in the valley. Several locations were considered. The lake had been broken into several sections with unique challenges and solutions. Finally the area called T30-1 was chosen.

Concept drawing of the NUVIS Owens Lake landscape project (T30-1) for CDMSmith/LADWP.

In my opinion T30-1s location was perfect for providing a variety of dust mitigation measures, Cardoza explained. The blend of good soil conditions, topography, and water allowed us to be creative in how we met the habitat and dust mitigation requirements needed to satisfy LADWP.

The presentation documents show the central attraction. It is what has been named the plaza. The shade structure at the plaza is meant to be large in scale, Cardoza said, the purpose is to provide a reference point to visitors, a landmark of sorts. Cardoza uses the palette of natural colors that occur in the mineral planar surface of both the lake and the hills and mountains that frame it. Using these colors in various ways is significant to his vision. The selection of Corten steel, he said, was important for its variation in

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