Desert Haze contains original photographs I’ve taken since 2014, alongside public domain images. It’s my first artist book.

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I’ve been wanting to make one for a while, a book object I could be fully present with. The project asked more of me than I anticipated. Originally, I wanted to focus on the Antelope Valley’s desert habitat. But I have photos from several desert locations, and they each had something to say. I let the project expand, and the AV work will find its own form eventually.

The working title was The Desert is the Spirit of Uncertainty and Extremes. I’ve been living with that for some time (not as crisis, just as condition). Parched. Being unsure, uncertain, destabilized. I’ve gazed at a lot of open desert land and skies, wondering what direction my life is moving toward, how much time is left to find out. I’ve dreamt of living somewhere else. Away from extremes and uncertainties. But I made an answer for now: look closer at what’s here. Pay attention to what is, not what could be.

Here’s Desert Haze.

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Art dates with friends

These days, my favorite thing to do with a friend is see an art show. We catch up, walk together, and naturally separate as we’re drawn to different things at different paces. I always leave inspired.

The image above is a screenshot from a video project by Tuan Andrew Nguyen. I walked into the dark room in the middle of the screening. Had it to myself. I was moved. Eyes wet.

It was also a reminder: oh, this is the kind of work I want to make. Working with people and their stories. Their experiences. Their reflections, discoveries, longing. Their questions. Their imagination. Their memories. Their reckonings.

Until next time,

Stepfanie

“Let me see you move!” he shouted with a warm, excited smile.

There was an unseen tug— something definitely took over me. Awkwardly, I rolled my arms like an old-fashioned person, spun, and did a quick one-two-step. He cheered me on. I laughed and went on to pick up my burger.

All the swirly chaos has kind of put me in this “out-of-body” experience. Like an IDGAF-my-body-will-do-what-it-wants. Maybe it’s more of an embodied kind of way. Instead of crying from the stress and pressures of life, my body just wants to let the mind pause and shake me into a whole being. Like humming/vagal toning at the bustling art book fair.

Were you that child who watched The Sound of Music and then ran outside to sing “Do Re Mi” into open air? My family had just migrated from the Philippines, staying with my aunt on her farm in rural New York. This was the late 90s. She was strict about TV— we could only watch after 7 p.m. if the adults weren’t already watching. There were other rules too, and I broke one: I got in trouble taking ice cream from the freezer without permission.

I was that child. Playfully dramatic, imaginative, needing to pretend. Out in those meadows I once watched a whole herd of deer prance across the far edge of the field, and I thought, of course.

In a restricted, disciplined life, I find the whimsical. I must.

After the LA Art Book Fair

I just want to say thank you for coming by my booth. It’s a fun time to meet and chat with new people and connect with artists, no matter how much of an introvert I am. I also gotta thank NG for feeding me and holding it down when I wandered around the fair for bit. And lastly, my neighbor, Trece Ojos, for the inspo and wonderful conversations.

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What’s next

A vodcast idea has been quietly collecting dust since 2024. I need to upload the remaining Memoriver Radio archives online. There might be a get-together in August (a sort of show-and-tell of your own art work—maybe a casual, intimate art show—I’m still thinking). I want to hike more. Camp again. I’m working on the second edition of Mountains. I’m joining a radio station (reviving an audio garden). Picking up the “day in the life of a friend” documentary. Resume the “archiving as ritual” guide. Stationery, calendar, and postcard-pack projects??? I really want to put together an in-person activity for materializing and archiving memory and attention. Idk if all of this will happen, but I even wrote a longer list from the burst of excitement.

I feel encouraged by the big change in my weekly schedule— to hypothesize and do hands-on creative research again. I just feel like I’m emerging out of a shell and into something else, and idk what that is. I might just dance again on the street.

Sincerely,

Stepfanie

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Memoriver Radio is an audio zine that drifts from place to place. It's part radio art, part ephemeral archive, community-centered, offering a floating recording space for sharing stories, dreams, poems, sound experiments, or spontaneous interviews. Each session becomes part of a living, sonic tapestry--an informal oral history shaped by those who pass through.

*This episode includes field recordings from public gatherings where background music may be present. Music was not selected or added by the project’s artist.

Memoriver Radio is a pop-up radio booth where you can take the mic and share your dreams/poetry/calls-to-action, interview your friend, and make sound collages.

Recorded in June 2024 at School for the Ecocene’s Confluence.