Humans have been carving out their lives in the Coachella Valley for 2000 years. Tahquitz and the other so-called Indian Canyons have provided an actual oasis to the Cahuilla people, providing water and abundant vegetation, including the largest stand of fan palms on the continent, since prehistory.
The mountains and canyons, the green fresh smell of desert air after the sun’s come up, sharp light carrying echoes of the spirits that’ve drawn people here, then sustained them.
Ace came here in 2009, spurred by those same spirits and seeking to commune with them, to learn what we can and invite our friends and to make new ones along the journey.
Each spring when the palo verde burst in yellow blooms we throw a big fat festival of love and spiritual surrender at our swim club that happens to coincide with another little music situation just around the way. We hit the waves in the cold deep pool, we drink all the ice coffee and cactus water and a few nighttime drinks sometimes too. We bring our friends to throw parties and we dance and tell stories, love and let people love us right back.
That time is now. We hope you’re here with us, bodily or otherwise. We’ll be reporting back what we find. We want to share it all with you. But, for now, things are just warming up. You guys: it’s Desert Gold.
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Well, here’s the deal: for the past seven years we’ve been throwing a loco fiesta in the desert in the shadow of the San Jacintos during Coachella called Desert Gold. If you turned to your very best friends and said, Let’s Oasis and they knew exactly what you meant and then you showed up and it was all ready and waiting — it’s kinda like that. We’ll have our rocksteady friends at dublab back in the DJ saddle, and we’ll be sipping cold brew coffee and hi-fiving with our Mailchimp friendos by the deep cold pool.Â
The whole enchilada’s going to be a ten day golden lucky technicolor suite of sunlight and sand and desert holy, yours for the yessing. There’s a room or two with a view left just yet, but, no surprise: fortune favors the bold.Â
Commune has been designing places in spaces from their outpost in the American Promised Land, garnering a chorus of praise each step along the way. On their 10th birthday, they made a book. And then they made this really moving picture about it, too.Â
This is the finished Aaron de la Cruz mural he’s been creating at the Commune wall. It’s part of our Desert Gold kickoff. Time to hit the waves, sport some shortpants, and dance it out.Â
In his interview he was kind enough to let out a signal flare that’s illuminating Desert Gold this year: we’re focusing extra attention on Latino artists, musicians and cultures.
The world is bursting with wonder, and sometimes it's nice to have a lens to look through. So for now we'll echo H. Valentine Miller: “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Aaron de la Cruz is currently mid-mural-painting on the Commune wall at Ace Hotel & Swim Club as part of Desert Gold 2014. The San Francisco-based artist's background is rooted in street art, and the way he shapes and improvises movement in his work gives it wonderfully deep texture and context. Through his use of lines and space he manages to evoke a unique intertextual roadmap by connecting the dots between modern linguistic text along with pre-Columbian Mayan art and contemporary life on the west coast. That is, we're very proud to be working again with him. His mural is almost ready for you to vibe on all year long at Ace Hotel & Swim Club.
Part of your process seems to involve being in the moment when you are painting some of your site-specific work. You’ve spoken in interviews about letting your feelings, thoughts and the environment around you influence where you take your work. What sort of preparations do you make leading up to putting paint to surface? Do you have a color palate? Â
It really depends on the project as far as how I'm going to determine the outcome of the piece I'm going to create. For this project, I really wanted to focus on my ethnic background — being of Mexican descent. My source of color palette inspiration was a cup of fruit that you would buy from a vendor on the street in Mexico. After spending the first day here on location, I got to meet some of the staff here. Most of them happen to be Latino (or part-Latino) and I knew I had made the right decision.Â
Does your work have an agenda? Do you have a goal or focus as an artist?
As far as my work having an agenda I would say that I really try to push myself to work within a limited amount of mediums. For now I like to challenge myself to see what I can do with that. Having a goal and a focus as an artist is a must. I am always trying to find ways to tell a story with my work that has to do with my family or myself. The more I become dependent on my works supporting what I do, the more I feel it's only right to share what I have with an audience who wants to listen. I would like to see my work become more three-dimensional (architectural/industrial design) and even do some earthworks as well.Â
What is your process for navigating your own artistic concerns or goals when it comes to doing commissioned pieces? Is having constraints helpful in your work, or a hindrance?
For the most part it's been really easy to work in commission pieces. I find that while most people I work with are really open and let me do what I want, I do give them a sense of direction that I will be going in. I enjoy some pushback at times as it causes me to work in an uncomfortable setting that I have to make right. I have worked with Ace Hotel before on a print we did along with Arkitip, and the response was great, so making this mural project happen wasn't difficult at all.Â
Lots of people will be walking by your mural over the next year, taking photos with it, tagging it online. Is there anything you’d like to have these people take away from the mural — something connective, or a feeling?Â
I want the working staff of Ace Hotel & Swim Club to know that this is their mural and it's influenced by the culture of their community that they have created. The designs I’ve chosen for this mural were influenced by the style of architecture here, and I wanted the designs to have a sense of calm, since my color palette was so loud. As for people taking pictures and capturing a feeling, I guess I will let nature takes its course and see what happens!Â
Linda Gerard, the spiritual queen of Ace Hotel & Swim Club and soulful mentor to us all, passed away yesterday. A fiery, radiant star with a special kind of gravity unto herself, she’s been a legend around Palm Springs for so long now that it’s impossible to quantify all the ways her irrepressible spirit has served our community.Â
Linda’s storied life in Broadway and cabaret stretched both coasts — sharing stages with Streisand and Mimi Hines, and winning hearts nationwide for decades. As the weekly Mistress of Ceremonies at Ace Hotel & Swim Club’s long-standing Sissy Bingo, we learned from our favorite OWL (Older Wiser Lesbian) how to be gracious and strong and brave. She fought the good fight against cancer for some while now with tenacity and grit. Linda, we cherish you from here to the moon.Â
