Lights All Askew in the Heavens

As it's basically autumn all of the sudden, I've got Land Arts nostalgia, so I started looking at projects from last year. Our crew's final site was the Buena Vista community in El Paso, where we stayed and worked with artist Roberto Salas on creating a mural that would liven up an old retaining wall and be seen from the highway.

First there was group brainstorming of design ideas:

Photos taken by Bill Gilbert

Then marking out the grid:

Then actually laying stone and grout:

And so it progressed, over the course of four days.

(Click on images to see them larger, if you're so inclined.)

A pretty major group effort! Reviews from the general El Paso public were mixed, but the people who actually lived in the neighborhood seemed genuinely pleased and touched by the effort, supplying us with a regular stream of bottled water, encouragement, and occasionally even beer or baked goods.