A-Z West is located on 25 acres in the California high desert next to Joshua Tree National Park. Since fall 2000 the cabin and grounds have been undergoing a conversion into our all-new testing grounds for our "A-Z designs for living." This desert region originally appealed to us because it seemed that one could do anything here-which we are finding out isn't exactly true! It is also the historical site of the five-acre Homestead Act. In the 1940s and 1950s legislation gave people five acres of land for free if they could improve it by building a minimal structure. The result is a seemingly infinite grid system of dirt roads that cuts up a very beautiful desert region. In the middle of each perfect square of land is a tiny shack-most of them long since abandoned. The area and its history represent a very poignant clash of human idealism, the harshness of the desert climate, and the vast distances it places between people.

Initially, the primary focus at A-Z West was on production and how to develop new materials and new kinds of fabrication techniques. After working outdoors in 110-degree temperatures and contending with seemingly infinite budget problems, I believed that there must be a way to make interesting and significant art for less money, and less physical toll. This led to the search for a new technology: A-Z Advanced Technologies. Looking for the most plentiful and least costly resource available, I decided to find a way to use my paper waste as a building material. Stacks of old newspapers, magazines, mail order catalogs, and office debris were almost overwhelming in their volume,and were ordinarily something that I had to haul to the local dump. To turn paper into a moldable material it is first shredded and pulped. Then it is packed into a series of plastic molds, which slide into a grid of steel frames so that the pulp can dry outdoors in the hot sun. The installation of the Regenerating Field consists of a grid of 25 trays that spills down the hill in front of the A-Z West Homestead. The work references both the aesthetics of earthwork installations (like the Lightning Fields by Walter de Maria) and the industrialized format of modern day agriculture.

Dried paper pulp is lightweight, incredibly strong, and can be molded into shapes that look like fiberglass, concrete, or even travertine stone. And of course the dry, moistureless desert, where A-Z West is sited, is perhaps the most perfect place for this type of new technology. Although eventually I plan to use my process to build furniture and larger structures, the initial attempt has been to create an attractive, durable wall panel. Something that could camouflage bad walls and add softness and texture to a room. A little like the phenomena of wood paneling of the 1960s and 1970s, but without all of the connotations of that era.

Since 1991 the technical and conceptual evolution of the A-Z Uniforms Series has been gravitating toward an increasingly direct way of makingmy own garments. After finally reducing the tools of production to simply crocheting the strands of yarn directly off of my fingers, I began to consider the material that I was using. What if I could trace the strand of yarn back to its original form as fiber? Now I am finally beginning to make the most direct form of clothing possible by hand, "felting" wool directly into the shape of a garment and thereby inventing my own ways to make shirts and dresses. Because the clothing is made as one piece there are no seams involved, and when it is finished I use a safety pin to connect the two sides so that it will stay on! I have encapsulated this body of work under the heading AZ Advanced Technologies, which plays off the way that something can be both incredibly primitive and quite sophisticated at the same time.