Driftwood Conversations

The Salton Sea and other Paradoxes

A friend and I drove to Bombay Beach last Saturday. I thought the Biennale was happening, but I had misread a post. Information about it is surprisingly hard to find online. It’s hidden in plain sight. Part of the mystique.

I love art in almost any form, and I’m drawn to this celebration because it feels both improvised and intentional. I was hoping for crowds, Energy, and that hum that happens when artists gather in one place. I was hoping to photograph that hum.

There is a mystique around the area that attracts tourists, artists, and seekers. But when you begin researching Bombay Beach, the art quickly becomes secondary to the environmental reality.

The Salton Sea was accidentally created in 1905 when the Colorado River breached irrigation canals. It has no natural outlet. For decades, it was sustained by agricultural runoff from the Imperial Valley. Over time, water transfers to coastal cities reduced inflow, agricultural efficiency reduced runoff, and drought intensified evaporation. As the water receded, thousands of acres of lakebed were exposed, forming a playa. That exposed playa became a source of toxic dust carried by desert winds.

We arrived midafternoon after eating Mexican food in Mecca and stopping to photograph along the way. The light was expansive, the sky soft. When we got there, I was surprised by how quiet it was. A small scattering of people visiting installations. A few artists tending to half-finished pieces.

We spoke with Steven, a quiet, peaceful man who hangs Tibetan bells there each year. I’ve photographed him before. There is something steady about him. My friend and I both made portraits as the wind moved lightly through the metal.

I could feel pressure in my lungs. Subtle but unmistakable. I couldn’t imagine living there long-term, and yet people do. They live in small houses a block from the beach, in structures that were once part of a recreational dream.

Bombay Beach is not just an art destination. It is a threshold. It sits at the edge of ecological strain and human imagination. The shoreline recedes. The air carries history, failure, and reinvention. Artists build in a place that may not hold.

It mirrors the larger moment. Warlike language returns to headlines. Economies wobble. Climate systems strain. Governments posture. The ground feels less certain than it once did. It feels like a tremor beneath the surface of things.

And yet, people are building sculptures in the sand. A car hoisted upward, claiming sky space and demanding attention. Tibetan bells ringing in the wind that carries salt and residue. Installations half-finished, waiting for April’s full Biennale.

We are living through extreme change. But beneath the noise, something quieter is happening. Culture is reinventing itself in small pockets. Artists are working together without spectacle. New systems are being born from the bones of the old.

People are reorganizing. Physically. Emotionally. Spatially.

I am reorganizing. Cleaning sheds. Rewriting schedules. Softening my tone in relationships. Finding others who want depth instead of noise. Listening for a higher impulse. It feels cellular.

I think of what Krista Tippett often says: that in times of fracture, we do not need grand declarations as much as we need deeper conversations. Not louder voices, but truer ones. Not dominance, but attention.

What does the art say in a place like this? What does an artist create from found objects, abandonment, and environmental stress? It reminds us that imagination survives. That beauty does not wait for perfect conditions. That meaning can be assembled from what remains.

Maybe the magic no longer looks mystical. Maybe it looks like presence. Blessing water as recognition. Water holds memory. The body is mostly water. The Salton Sea is water in distress. What if attention alters something? What if reverence reorganizes us at the most essential level?

I have been feeling this in my own life. The urge to clean. To reorder equipment. To simplify distribution. To rethink how I speak. To choose my next projects carefully. To redefine human contact and connection.

This is not a retreat. It is calibration. The Salton Sea visit felt like a creative reset. The artists at Bombay Beach are not pretending the shoreline is stable. They are building anyway, not as denial but as declaration.

They are saying:

We are still here.
We are still creating.
We are still listening for bells in the wind.

keep creating, keep asking questions, and wait for the marvel of creation to show itself.

Sincerely,

Hilary