Joshua Tree National Park
In November 2023, I spent three weeks as an artist in residence at Joshua Tree NP. My project proposal focused on climate change impacts on the park. It was clear on my first day in the park that the Mojave ecosystem were far more complex than I imagined. Because of visits to the Cima Dome and the Lanfair Valley in the Mojave Preserve, and the Geology Tour Road fire scars, I placed the focus on fire.
I was subsequently invited to show work at the Black Rock Art Gallery in October 2024. So I spent most of 2024 making full-sheet prints for the exhibition. Solving the problems associated with these prints lead to 10 innovations in my printmaking-from-tooled-leather approach. The work also shifted my approach from one that relied on designing the printing plate in advance and printing “exact” duplicates to one that reuses various elements to design the print on the press bed from various elements. The result is a freer style with less emphasis on duplication, and is seen on the exhibition prints.
The five major prints from the exhibition were intended to present a timeline of the park from the ice age to the present. The ideas for these came from my research and time spent in the park.
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![Jim Weaver Artwork Relief Prints]()
A Well-Told Tale
A Well-Told Tale, 30”x22”, leather matrix relief print. Park Rangers tell the story of giant ground sloths eating and spreading Joshua Tree seeds before the last ice age.
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Thank you Mrs Minerva Hoyt for Preserving Joshua Tree
Thank you Mrs Minerva Hoyt for Preserving Joshua Tree, 30”x22”, leather matrix relief print, woodblock reduction. Mrs Minerva Hoyt is credited for successfully advocating the formation of Joshua Tree National Park. Her legacy isn’t very well known according to the park service.
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The Time Before and the Time After
The Time Before and the Time After, 30”x22”, leather matrix and woodblock relief print. Industrialization as indicated by the oil derrick divides time into before and after humans started using fossil fuels. World oil production began to increase in 1900 (left spiral) and atmospheric carbon dioxide has been increasing steadily ever since. Data collection began at Mauna Loa in Hawaii in 1958 (right incomplete spiral).
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Fire Season
Fire Season, 30”x22”, leather matrix and woodblock relief print. Climate-driven cycles of growth of native and invasive grasses provide fuel to support larger fires that were experienced historically. The area of wildfires in the U.S. fluctuate from year-to-year, but have generally increased since the 1960s.
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Hope for Restoration
Hope for Restoration, 30”x22”, leather matrix relief print, Oklahoma seed-grown Hesperaloe parviflora fiber. Some Joshua Trees survive even large fires, and green sprouts appear at the bases. Agave fibers form a mesh around a resprouting burned Joshua Tree, as a reminiscence of days spent with National Park Service Scientists—Oliver Anderson, Nick Graver, and Ryan McRae (Mojave National Preserve), and the chicken wire cages used to keep small animals from eating resprouting trees.
