Open Hearts Open Land
2010 - 2011

Unique collaged photographs, digital mural photographs and sound

I am interested in the history of Morningstar Ranch and Wheelers Ranch, two short-lived Northern California communes that attracted visitors and residents from the broad spectrum of the countercultural movement, from winos and Hells Angels to yoga enthusiasts, teenage runaways and young hippie mothers. The one rule of both of these communes, originally proclaimed by Lou Gottlieb, a founder of Morningstar, was that the land was open to everyone--no one could be asked, for any reason, to leave the land. Although this rule was intended to foster openness and tolerance of difference among Morningstar's inhabitants, the scene at the ranch was often intense.

The wildness of Morningstar, and to a lesser extent, Wheelers, where people from all different walks of life freely interacted without any of the rules of social conduct imposed by mainstream society, is compelling to me because of my long-held interest in human nature--specifically my interest in how people interact when the societal expectations and rules they grew up with are removed. Morningstar and Wheelers seemed like places where the best and the worst of human nature was on display and functioned as a sort of physic release valve from the pressures building up in society during the tumultuous late 1960s.