Category: California

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Armando Guadalupe Cortés: ¿Y LA GENTE?

Cortez performing El Descanso En La Gloria, (Rest when I am Dead), 2017

Armando Guadalupe Cortés was born in Urequío, Michoacán, México and raised in Wilmington, California. He graduated with an MFA from Yale School of Art 2021 and a BA from UCLA in 2012 .  ¿Y LA GENTE? from 2020, blends sculpture and performance to explore themes of memory, myth, history, geography, experience and materiality. 

Rammed Earth Columns before the performance

¿Y LA GENTE? (And the People?)
2020
Installation and performance
Clay, earth, iron oxides, stoneware
Each pillar 64” x 24” x 24”

Film still of the performance at ASU Art Museum, 2020

During the performance of ¿Y LA GENTE? Cortes excavates the rammed earth columns surrounded by musicians and dancers of his native Mexican heritage. Once revealing a gold ceramic sculpture within each column, one resembling a nopal cactus and the other a milling stone, Cortes exits the gallery leaving the deconstructed pillars to remain for the rest of the exhibition.  

Revealed Nopal Cactus
Revealed milling stone

Through blending performance and sculpture, he is able to question the dichotomy between myth and fiction as an antonym to history. Growing up in two worlds has lead Cortés to a fantastical take on the ordinary. He incorporates the multitude of symbols and identities from his family of farmers, migrants, manufacturers, office professionals, and professors in his material palette and choice of dress. In contrasting the mythical or in this case the colorful and culturally rich materiality with his business casual clothing, he illustrates the parallelism and tension within his life and work. This re-assembling of materials and cultural symbolism is crucial to how Cortes seeks to challenging notions of spectacle and viewership.

Sources:

Artist Website: https://armandogcortes.com/Y-LA-GENTE-2020

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/402306364?fl=pl&fe=cm

Bemis Center: https://www.bemiscenter.org/residents/armando_guadalupe_cort%C3%A9s

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Trina Michelle Robinson: Open Your Eyes to Water

Trina Michelle Robinson is an artist from Oak Park, Illinois who is currently working in San Francisco. Her art originates from from personal and historical archives, reflecting on her own ancestry to create immersive and deeply personal spatial encounters that materialize the complexity of emotions and layered geographies of Black migration. Her works often begin by tracing the steps of her ancestors, gathering materials from their homes and homelands, using this tactile act as a means to connect with them and gather their fractured and lost memories. In particular, she often collects dirt from these sites of personal significance, transforming that earth into a charged object within her compositions. Her installations are undefinable, hovering somewhere between an altar, a model, or a garden; a collection of objects that become spatial poetry. Trina received her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2022.

Her work Open Your Eyes to Water was exhibited in San Francisco at the 500 Cap Street Foundation and at Root Division from February-May 2026. The work is an expanded version of her previous installation titled Elegy for Nancy (2022) – a tender tribute to her oldest known ancestor, a woman named Nancy who was born in 1770s Kentucky, then still part of Virginia. Open Your Eyes to Water is a living installation tracing her years-long cross-continental engagement with family lineage and movement from Senegal, to Kentucky, Chicago, and California.

 

The Installation merges with the atmosphere of the gallery, charging the space with a melancholic yet restorative energy. At the center, a rammed earth block holds the room with a potent presence, atop which sits a reproduction of a will from the previous owner of her enslaved ancestors, written with handmade ink (a mixture of soil collected from Senegal and charred cedar charcoal) on paper she fabricated from cotton picked at a farm her ancestor used to be enslaved at in Oklahoma. Every mention of her ancestor’s enslavement has been redacted with sewn lines of sisal thread from Zimbabwe, reclaiming this history for herself, freeing her ancestors, speaking for them in the present moment.

The rammed earth block is composed from various soil samples from significant places tracing her family history through time and space, compressed together into a unified block, supporting a document of their liberation. The block sits in an analogous landscape of dirt and grass plumes, harkening to the various landscapes natural, agricultural, and urban landscapes her ancestors have traversed across the world.

 

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Andy Goldworthy’s Clay Wall

Above: Andy Goldsworthy, ‘Red Wall’, 2025.

Andy Goldsworthy is artist known for his work with nature and ephemeral materials such as rock, wood, leaves, snow, ice, and clay, and the site specificity of his pieces. He arranges them in a way that is just beyond the realm of possibility, investigating the line between the natural and artificial.

In 1992, he covered the floor of a London gallery in clay. In 1996 he made the same work at Haines Gallery in San Francisco, but against a 14′ x 17′ wall. The work was made knowing the clay would crack, and not knowing whether the clay would stay attached, but it surprisingly stayed attached for many years, despite occasional earthquakes. This was the beginning of a line of inquiry of clay, creating works with things embedded in clay, experimenting with intentional drying and cracking,

“… to make change an integral part of a work’s purpose so that, if anything, it becomes stronger and more complete as it falls apart and disappears.

“Clay can be well-behaved and easy to work. Yet it has such a powerful impact on the landscape: it reveals its more unpredictable qualities as it dries, and this process interests me most.”

Andy Goldsworthy, Clay Wall, Haines Gallery, 1996.

Andy Goldsworthy, Clay Wall, Ingleby Gallery, 1998.

 

 

Above: Drawn Stone is piece commissioned by the De Young in 2005. It is a continuous crack running north from the edge of the Music Concourse roadway in front of the museum up to the main entrance door, inspired by California’s tectonics.

Video: Andy Goldsworthy’s Earth Wall, Presidio of San Francisco, 2014.

Video: Andy Goldsworthy Studio Visit, Tate, 2011.

A life’s artwork: 50 years of Andy Goldsworthy, BBC, 2025.

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Robert Rauchenberg: Mud Muse

Robert Rauschenberg, Mud Muse, 1968–71; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, gift of the New York Collection

Mud Muse,  a kinetic artwork created between 1968 and 1971 by American artist Robert Rauschenberg,  in collaboration with engineers from Teledyne( through the Art & Technology program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art), is a large aluminum-and-glass vat that contains an enormous amount of mud, weighing thousands of pounds. Although considered mud by standard terminology, its more appropriate content appellation is bentonite, an absorbent, swelling clay composed of montmorillonite, from weathered volcanic ash.

The mixture is stirred to a distinctive viscosity in the vat, over the course of several hours or days. The primary allure of the art piece is the bubbles produced with the aid of pulsing air valves that are located beneath the surface of the mud. This is connected to an adjacent prerecorded soundtrack that emits sound from a 1960s reel-to-reel. The sound pushes air through the valves, resulting in a physical manifestation of sound emission.  Rauschenberg imagined different audio stimuli, including traffic noises, police sirens, and, most ambitiously, real-time sounds made by visitors that would be picked up by a hanging microphone. In the end, he decided that Mud Muse, when officially displayed for the public, would “play itself,” essentially a recursive loop of the audio made by the bubbles. 

American artist Robert Rauschenberg

Rauschenberg (1925-2008), born in Port Arthur, TX, is considered a pioneer in the art scene due to his early adaptations of technology in his work, such as radios, electric lights, and clocks, as well as his more renowned printmaking works. His endeavors into kinetic art began in 1960, after meeting Swiss artist Jean Tinguely. Together, they created several kinetic works alongside engineer Billy Klüver, such as Oracle (1962–65), a sonic sculptural environment, and Soundings (1968), an immersive, voice-activated sound and light installation. This era, which was marked by technological innovation and space exploration, ultimately played a pivotal role in Rauschenberg’s creation of Mud Muse.

Gunnar Marklund(right) installing Mud Muse

In modern days,  Mud Muse acts as a tradition passed down through the years. The current installer, Gunnar Marklund, notes that “The audio equipment and its cabinet are quite old and require maintenance and repair on occasion. And there are sixty-four valves in the bottom of the pool, and they do get clogged; I have to check them every time and clean them as needed.”  Occasionally, during installation, he experiments with different music to activate the bubbling (in New York recently, ABBA). Overall, the knowledge he has gained over 19 years, he passes on to future generations. 

Mud Muse 1968–71

In recapitulation, Mud Muse acts not only as a visual experience, but one that activates hearing, smell, and touch, allowing the public to have a holistic and interactive participation with the piece.  It collides two opposing worlds of ancient material and modern technology, creating a piece of art that has withstood the tests of time and continues to bewilder audiences.

Sources:

Artchive. “Oracle – Robert Rauschenberg (1965).” Accessed March 9, 2026.
https://www.artchive.com/artwork/oracle-robert-rauschenberg-1965/

Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology. “Collection of Documents Published by E.A.T.” Accessed March 9, 2026.
https://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=394

Elephant Magazine. “Rauschenberg’s Mud Muse Taught Me to Find Cohesion Even Amidst Chaos.” January 28, 2021.
https://elephant.art/rauschenberg-mud-muse-taught-me-to-find-cohesion-even-amidst-chaos-28012021/

Rauschenberg Foundation. “Soundings.” Accessed March 9, 2026.
https://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org/art/artwork/soundings

Teledyne Technologies. “EverywhereYouLook!” Accessed March 9, 2026.
https://www.teledyne.com/en-us

Tinguely Museum. “Museum Tinguely.” Accessed March 9, 2026.
https://www.tinguely.ch/en.html

Wallach, Amei. “Recalling Robert Rauschenberg.” Smithsonian Magazine, May 18, 2008.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/recalling-robert-rauschenberg-49830834/

YouTube. Video. Accessed March 9, 2026.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r88iDgTd-M

YouTube. Video. Accessed March 9, 2026.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvt-VSgPd4c

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The Windhover Contemplative Center

Matthew Millman Photography

The Windhover Contemplative Center is a one-story, 4,000-square-foot spiritual refuge on the Stanford University campus. It was designed by the architecture firm Aidlin Darling Design and named after a series of paintings by artist Nathan Oliveira.

About the Architect

The cofounding partners of Aidlin Darling Design at the Center for Architecture + Design in San Francisco. Photography: Adam Rouse.

Aidlin Darling Design is an architecture firm based in San Francisco, California, founded in 1998. It was established by two partners, Joshua Aidlin and David Darling.

They earned their Bachelor of Architecture degrees from the University of Cincinnati, where they met as students. Their collaboration began with woodworking and furniture-making projects, which later developed into their architectural practice.

They see design as a multisensory experience, where the way something feels, smells, and sounds is as important as how it looks.

About the Architecture

Plan
Entrance

The building is situated beside a natural oak grove. Visitors enter through a long private garden, where a bamboo grove at the entrance separates the building from the outside world.

Matthew Millman Photography
Sections

The building primarily uses rammed earth, stained oak wood, glass, and water elements to create a sensory and contemplative atmosphere. Inside the center, thick rammed earth walls and dark wood surfaces create a strong contrast with the light-filled eastern wall.

Matthew Millman Photography

Matthew Millman Photography
Matthew Millman Photography

Water and landscape elements are integrated throughout the project: fountains within the interior and courtyards create a calm atmosphere, while a quiet reflecting pool and garden on the south side mirror the surrounding trees.

 

Matthew Millman Photography
Matthew Millman Photography

The outdoor meditation spaces blend seamlessly with the daily use of the center, reinforcing the connection between nature, art, and contemplation. The courtyards and the expansive glass curtain wall on the east allow visitors to view the paintings without entering the building, creating a peaceful place for the Stanford community both day and night.

About the Material

Matthew Millman Photography

The rammed earth walls, ranging from 18 inches to 2 feet thick, were hand-tamped pneumatically in 6–8 inch lifts. The pressure was carefully controlled to create a variegated texture that reflects the construction process.

Matthew Millman Photography

The soil beneath the building initially produced a rich brown color, similar to the sandstone buildings of Stanford’s original campus. While beautiful, the pure site soil proved too dominant for the artwork. Ultimately, a five-part blend was developed, with 20% of the material sourced directly from the site. The remaining ingredients included coarse sand, “birdseye” gravel, powdered rhyolite, decomposed granite, and Portland cement.

 

Matthew Millman Photography

Oliveria’s Windhover Dyptich, 36 feet long and six feet high, hangs on 234,000 pounds of rammed earth-a wall twenty feet tall by sixty feet long. A wall this tall requires two form set-ups. With a stacked form you need to give careful consideration to the location of the stack point. Notice the cold joint runs right through the center of the painting.

 

 

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David Easton’s Rammed Earth Works

Photo by U.S. Green Building Council

Californian David Easton (1948-2021) was a pioneer in the use of rammed earth in contemporary construction. David Easton first learned of rammed earth through a book titled “Build Your House of Earth” by G.F. Middleton. Trained as both an engineer and architect at Stanford University, Easton was surprised to learn that the “moist soil compacted directly into movable forms wielding immediately load-supporting walls,” claiming it “seemed too good to be true” [1]. 

Enamored by the little literature and research available on rammed earth, Easton set out to perfect the methods and applications of the material and founded his company, Rammed Earth Works, in 1976. In the 50 years since, Easton and Rammed Earth Works have worked on hundreds of both residential and commercial projects across the nation, cementing themselves as one of the world’s leading firms in the research and application of rammed earth construction technologies [2]. Easton’s company has also helped push the envelope to make the building codes around the nation be more accepting of rammed earth construction and developed various rammed earth technologies such as PISE (pneumatically impacted stabilized earth), Terratile, and the Easton (California) Forming System for rammed earth and cast elements [3].

 

Easton Forming System in action, photo by Cynthia Wright.

 

PISE in action, photo by David Easton.

In 1996, Easton published The Rammed Earth House, an exploration of the history and modern use of rammed earth construction with beautiful photographs taken by Cynthia Wright of both modern and historical examples [4]. Easton has since revised The Rammed Earth House, and in the years since its initial publication, it has been widely accepted as one of the most informative and influential works on rammed earth, showing an ancient building technique that is exactly suitable for today’s resource-conscious and environmentally friendly building needs.

One of David Easton’s most notable rammed earth projects is the Windhover Contemplative Center at Stanford University. This project, designed to be a spiritual refuge on the college campus, was created in collaboration with architects Aidlin Darling and Andrea Cochran, as well as artist Nathan Oliveira.  

Photo taken by Matthew Millman.

The project contains three large rammed earth walls designed to be a backdrop to Oliveria’s paintings. In the center of the largest wall, a 234,000 pound rammed earth wall 20 feet tall and 60 feet long, sits a large diptych painted by Oliveira. 

Photo taken by Matthew Millman.

The project was extremely labor extensive: each wall was built “in 42 six-inch lifts pounded to four-inch courses by eight men on rammers.”

Credit Aidlin Darling Design.
Credit Aidlin Darling Design.

Sources: 

  1.  Block, David. “Looking at the Legacy of Legendary Earth Builder David Easton: February 25, 1948 — February 12, 2021.” Medium, 6 June 2021, davidyblock.medium.com/looking-at-the-legacy-of-legendary-earth-builder-david-easton-february-25-1948-february-12-b63e8c7677be. Accessed 16 Feb. 2026.
  2. English, Mark, AIA. “David Easton – 45 Years of Rammed Earth.” The Architects’ Take, 16 Nov. 2018,thearchitectstake.com/interviews/david-easton-45-years-of-rammed-earth-construction/. Accessed 16 Feb. 2026.
  3. Rammed Earth Works. “About Us.” Rammed Earth Works, www.rammedearthworks.com/about-us. Accessed 16 Feb. 2026.
  4. Aidlin Darling Design. “Windhover Contemplative Center.” Aidlin Darling Design, aidlindarlingdesign.com/projects/windhover-contemplative-center/. Accessed 16 Feb. 2026.

 

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Christine Howard Sandoval

Who is Christine Howard Sandoval?

Sandoval is an interdisciplinary artist working across media including sculpture, installation, performance, and public art. Her versatile practice allows her to express her conceptual interests through a variety of artistic forms.

Sandoval is currently an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Praxis in the Audain Faculty of Art at Emily Carr University (Vancouver, BC). Howard Sandoval is an enrolled member of the Chalon Nation in Bakersfield, CA. As an artist and writer engaging with timely ecological and social justice issues, Sandoval’s practice is situated within important contemporary conversations around environmentalism, indigeneity, and cultural representation.

https://www.brokenboxespodcast.com/podcast/christine-toward-sandoval

Cultural Identity and Influences:

As someone of Mexican and European American descent, Sandoval’s multifaceted cultural heritage is a core influence on her artistic vision and the themes she explores.

Her work often engages with questions of land, place, and indigenous environmental knowledge, reflecting her connection to the American Southwest region where she is based.

This cultural hybridity and commitment to representing marginalized perspectives is a key aspect of Sandoval’s artistic identity.

Education and Career:

Sandoval has formal training in the arts, holding a BFA from the University of New Mexico and an MFA from UC Davis.

Her educational background has provided her with a strong technical foundation to realize her conceptual ideas across different mediums.

Over the course of her career, Sandoval has exhibited her work internationally and received prestigious awards and grants, indicating her recognition within the contemporary art world. Howard Sandoval has been awarded numerous residencies including: UBC Okanagan, Indigenous Art Intensive program (Kelowna, BC), ICA San Diego (Encinitas, CA), Santa Fe Art Institute (Santa Fe, NM), Triangle Arts Association (New York, NY).

Examples of her work:

-Coming Home, August 21 – October 31, 2021

“In Coming Home Christine Howard Sandoval explores the history of California Indigeneity and its relationship to the archive, a place in which collective memory is stored. In California, the documentation constructed by settlers embodies a narrative of erasure but is also embedded with the seeds of Indigenous knowledge paramount to the reconstruction of Indigenous language, cultural practices, and relationships to the land. Howard Sandoval works with the archive to trace the migration of her Chalon Ohlone ancestors, telling the story of her community, her family, and her coming home to California.”

Document Mounds- Application for Enrollment with the Indians of the State of California Under The Act of May 28, 1928 (6 pages), 2021, inkjet print on vinyl, tape, adobe mud, and steel, 24H X 16W X 7D inches each.


Surveillance Mound, 2021, adobe mud, tape, steel, wood, wire, paint, 89.5H X 19W X 19D inches.

Sending Signals Into The Ground To Form Images Of What Is There To See, 2020, adobe mud on paper, 60 X 96 inches.

-The green shoot that cracks the rock, May 27 – July 16, 2022

“Howard Sandoval’s embodied work confronts the complex history and innate interconnection of land and body. As she traces a path to her ancestral home, the artist scrutinizes the narrative of erasure in early North American settler’s records and reassigns power through documentation of embedded Indigenous cultural practices. Her poetic oeuvre seeks to weave a collective awareness back to nature by means of a more cyclical and deepened relationship with land and place.

The land, as an ever-evolving being, plays a central role in Howard Sandoval’s visual language. Taking adobe as her main medium, the artist explores its inherent properties of historical, familial and ecological histories. Adobe mud requires a bodily process to mix soil (sand, silt and clay), water and often straw to form a workable, malleable and ultimately structural material. In this ongoing investigation, she emphasizes the intentionally omitted history of forced labor, land theft, and the violent genocidal actions Indigenous people experienced.”

Installation view, the green shoot that cracks the rock, parrasch heijnen gallery, LA, 2022.

Niniwas- to belong here, 2022, single channel video with audio, TRT 12:23, Sound design in collaboration with Luz Fleming.

Installation for the green shoot that cracks the rock, parrasch heijnen gallery, LA, 2022

Stretcher- For The Transportation of Water, 2021 adobe mud, tape, steel, wood, wire 54 x 56 x 27-1/4 inches.

More  of her work: 

Mound- Angle of Integration, 2020, adobe mud and graphite on paper, 60 X 96 inches.

 Pillars- An Act of Decompression, 2020, adobe mud and graphite on paper, 60 X 96 inches. 

Arch- A Passage Formed By A Curve (detail), 2020. Photo by Scott Massey.

360 VIRTUAL TOUR:

Creative Output:

In addition to her visual art practice, Sandoval is also a published poet and essay writer.

Her literary work, like her art, delves into themes of land, place, and environmental stewardship from an indigenous-influenced perspective.

This dual commitment to both visual and written expression demonstrates Sandoval’s versatility as a creative practitioner.

References:

–https://www.chsandoval.com/home

–https://www.parraschheijnen.com/artists/christine-howard-sandoval

 

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Rafa Esparza

Rafa Esparza is a Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist, known for exploring the intersections of history, identity, and place through his work. Born and raised in East L.A., Esparza draws inspiration from his Mexican-American culture. His installations, performances, and sculptures delve into themes of colonization, queer identity, and environmental concerns, critiquing ideologies, power structures and binaries. Esparza frequently collaborates with other artists and his community, including his family members.

At the Edge of the Sun (2024), Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles

His most prominent works consists of building adobe structures in unconventional spaces, such as the Los Angeles River and art galleries. This in reference to both his familial roots and indigenous building traditions they also emphasize the labor and traditional skills involved.

Corpo RanfLA: Terra Cruiser 4everz (2023), SFMOMA

“I just knew that adobe had a special place in his own personal history, and I thought it could be a good way to start  having conversations about some guidance that I needed at the time as a young person coming into adulthood. What it did, in fact, was allow us to share space without being at each other’s necks, while he passed down this way of working with land”

Rafa Esparza, on mending his relationship with his father through earth

Cowboy (2023), Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver

Esparza challenges institutional frameworks and addresses socio-political issues (e.g. immigration, race, and marginalization). His work, at its core, is about storytelling and resistance, using art as a platform to engage with broader discussions on identity and systemic injustice.

In Whitney’s 2017 Biennial, in New York City, Rafa Esparza’s Figure/Ground: Beyond the White Field, created an immersive microclimate.  What was once, a white cubed gallery is covered in what Esparza calls “brown matter,” adobes; a mixture of hay, clay, horse dung, and water from the LA River, baked under California sun, and transported across U.S. coast’s. By invitation fellow queer artists to become adoberos, and helped to collectively created nearly five thousand adobes for the installation.

Whitney Biennial (2017), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

“Brown matter” or adobe is used not only in reference to skin color, but also a broad range of conversations on race, nationality, ethnicity, and gender and the intersections therein. Most especially, concerns surrounding the 2016 U.S. Presidential election of Trump.

To complete the installation, five other artists were invited to exhibit their mixed-media artwork within the adobe rotunda. The adobe rotunda plays is both an artwork itself and a space for exhibiting the work of others (figure and ground).

building: a simulacrum of power (2014), Bowtie Project, Los Angeles

References

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Glendale Childcare Center

Located in Glendale, California, the 23,000 square-foot childcare facility, designed by Marmol Radziner, accommodates 236 children between infant and Pre-K ages. The complex is the first LEED Gold Certified building in Glendale, and is the largest rammed earth building in Southern California. The sustainable strategies incorporated into the building, including photovoltaic panel canopies and structural rammed earth walls, are key visual and tactile elements in the design, emphasizing the facility as both a learning environment and an educational tool.