How I See It — My Place
Ridgecrest
Team photo:
Back Row (left to right) Marsha Lloyd (Head Librarian), Bonnie Robertson, Michaela Ghent, Barbara (B.J.) Robertson, Braelyn Havig, Donna McCrohan Rosenthal (writing consultant), Tom Cummings (Project Lead).
Front Row (left to lright) Allison Aubin (writing consultant), Anthony Haberman, Zach Gardiner, Harrison Sater, Mark Pahuta (photography consultant)
Participant Michaela Ghent working on her project
Participants Zach Gardiner (left) and Anthony Haberman discussing their projects
Allison Aubin (writing consultant) working with Harrison Sater on his project
Reception
Reception
Behind the Scenes
Our community is located in the Indian Wells Valley of the Upper Mojave Desert, along the Eastern Sierra, and lies about 150 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The high desert climate is hot in the summers and cool in the winters. About 27,000 people call Ridgecrest home, and the library’s service population reaches about 40,000 people.
Permanent structures in the valley only date back to the 1910s or so. When the Navy established a testing base in the valley in the 1940s, the population grew along with services and businesses. The oldest part of Ridgecrest was our project’s area of exploration, in order to find the themes suggested for the students—West Ridgecrest Blvd. and Balsam Street. On our walkabouts, we found decades old concrete with footprints in it, old hardware at the USO Building, signs painted over, old graffiti, juxtapositions of old and new. The teens thought this community was old, which was indicative of their youth.
Students came away with an experience of taking the time to look for evidence of past generations, long forgotten details, how nature reclaims her place, mysteries, finding the unexpected. These kinds of discoveries can only be made by walking and observing. Our teens loved doing the picture-taking part of the project.
Two guests spoke to the teens about local history and the history of the USO Building, which is being restored by our local historical society as a meeting place and community center. The inside and outside of this building really intrigued the teens and many photographs were taken there. None of the teens knew the original purpose of the building until one of our speakers shared her memories of its grand opening when she was a girl.
Our project began in August and concluded in October. We met on Tuesday evenings at 5:00pm to 7:30pm, and had to get outside while the light was good. We carpooled to the old part of town, breaking the recommendation to walk within a quarter of a mile from the library. Adult leaders always felt the pressure of time to keep on a schedule with so much to do. Meeting twice per week would have been better and allowed for more instruction in good photography, for example.
Braelyn Havig working on her final board
All of our participants learned a great deal from creating their display boards, writing their captions and statements, preparing for the exhibit opening, noting all of the details which must be addressed and decided upon. They now have a tremendous experience to draw upon in the future. They all want to do the project again, but we have told them that they can be mentors to new participants. We plan to launch the project again in the summer of 2009 with our Friends’ support.
The community has been very enthusiastic and amazed at the quality of the work shown by the teens. The exhibit has been open here at the library, two weeks at City Hall in November, and will be on display at the Indian Wells Valley Economic Outlook Conference on Feb. 12. We also plan for an exhibit at our community college gallery, Cerro Coso Community College, after Feb. 12.
Accomplishments of this project include an expanded view of what libraries can do in communities, how expertise can be passed from one generation to another, that study and experiences in the humanities are important to our quality of life and our future, that teens are spending time doing positive activities and want to learn more about where they live. This project has value on so many levels for all those involved, including the audience.
— Marsha Lloyd, Project Director
