Borrego Modern Weekend III : Galleta Meadows

As a desperately needed breather to a horrible ongoing critical essay assignment, I thought I'd post some photographs of the wonderful sculptures we discovered scattered around the vast Borrego Valley during last week's architecture tour. I had vaguely remembered reading about this project, and my friend forwarded me this older San Diego Union-Tribune article that explains how numerous steel sculptures of prehistoric creatures came to be located throughout the Galleta Meadows area of Borrego Springs. Dennis Avery, a wealthy local landowner, combined his interest in paleontology and preserving open space by buying up large parcels of land in the early 1990s, which he has primarily left alone and kept open for use during wildflower season. Recently, he approached Mexican artist Ricardo Breceda and commissioned several of the concrete sculptures to demonstrate the wildlife that once roamed this area and to bring some large-scale public art works to the open regions of the Borrego Desert. The project has been a hit with both local inhabitants and visitors, and after spotting some of the sculptures far off in the distance during our house tour, we set about discovering as many as we could. My friend points out that, looking at Avery's website, we seem to have missed a few, including some borrego sheep and a saber-toothed cat attacking a horse.


The first animals we spotted, far off in the distance on Saturday afternoon, was a cluster of camels and llamas.

The following morning, we headed off in the direction of some primitive pachyderms - the gomphotherium.

More camels, and a mother-and-child giant ground sloth could be found just up the road.

Our final encounters were with the missionary, Father Francisco Garces, and the nearby giant tortoise and the mildly disapproving Aztec God.

The interplay between the sculptures and the arid desert landscapes was something to behold. No doubt there are plenty of the real-estate types who've dragged the country's economy into the sewer who see such projects and open space and wonder how many split-level developments they could cram into the valley. I'm glad individuals like Dennis Avery can see beyond such sort-sighted plans and recognize how much things like open sculpture parks add to communities. As my friend wrote me in an email, paraphrasing the original newspaper article - "All hail the whimsy of multimillionare Dennis Avery!"