HIDDEN WATERS
Disappearing Desert Springs
Across the American West, desert springs are easy to overlook, remote and often no more than pools of water that seem improbable against the dryness surrounding them. They sustain life in landscapes that offer little else, carrying centuries of history within them. Many are now disappearing due to prolonged drought and aquifer overuse, and once gone, they may never return.
My connection to these waters began while living in a bone-dry Arizona town where water use was something you thought about every day. Before this project had a shape, I spent time with intertribal Water Keepers who spoke about springs on their lands going dry as a loss both physical and cultural, felt across generations. Their words shaped how I came to see these places.
Influenced by the desert paintings of Maynard Dixon, I work with a muted palette that treats each spring as a small but weighted presence within a larger terrain. These photographs bear witness to what is still there, because once it is gone, each loss gradually redraws what we think of as normal.