COHORT

COLLABORATORS

Verlon Allen III

Aerial Photographer

Verlon Allen III is a director of photography who captured the locations featured in ON ALL Day from a DJI Phantom 4 quadcopter. He is a member of the International Cinematographers Guild (IATSE Local 600) and outside of film work is often found working in a variety of capacities in performing arts venues. He studied at the Savannah College of Art & Design and resides in Los Angeles, CA.

Alicia Bay Laurel

Artist & Musician

Alicia Bay Laurel is an internationally renowned author, visual artist, book designer, singer-songwriter, storyteller, and guitarist. In 2026, Indigo with Stars, Inc. published her eco sci-fi romantasy graphic novella Eartha & Aetherias: A Fairy Tale from the 22nd Century. She is best known for her first book, Living on the Earth, a DIY guide to self-sufficient outdoor living, bohemian style, created at Wheeler Ranch in Northern CA in the late 1960s.

Adriana Campos-Ojeda

Filmmaker & Photographer

Adriana Campos-Ojeda is a filmmaker hailing from the city of Los Angeles and considers Littlerock CA her second home. She studied filmmaking in both Los Angeles City College and Cal State Northridge. She earned her B.A in Psychology and Media Management from the University of Cal State Northridge. Driven by her interest in storytelling she has combined both disciplines in order to produce compassionate and original work.

Leroy Cullen

Landscape Installation

Based in Landers, Leroy Cullen quietly installs exquisite landscapes for prominent properties in the High and Low Deserts. As resident of Landers for over 40 years, he generously shares water from his local well, procures equipment and lends his expertise for stories and stewardship events at Giant Rock, where he has earned the title of Water Wizard. We won't do a cleanup without him.

Dydia made the Llano Women's Study Club Banner she sports

Dr. Dydia DeLyser

Historian & Professor

Dydia is a scholar, writer, and geographer working with communities to make our past meaningful in the present, and intervening to preserve our past on behalf of our future. Over decades of research, collaboration, and publishing I have developed expertise particularly in the areas of ghost towns, the “Ramona Myth” in southern California, and how neon signs transformed the American landscape and shape our communities.

Miriam Diddy

Artist & Land Planner

Miriam's work builds upon both the tangible and intangible elements of planning. Born and raised in New Mexico as a Diné and Hopi woman, her work focuses on bridging the ties between the contemporary built environment and cultural narratives that honor and recognize the resiliency of indigenous people in everyday places.

Ben Garcia

Owner A to Z Equestrian

Ben Garcia leads A to Z Equestrian and Livestock, a full service family owned and operated farm and ranch in Llano, CA, offering horses for sale, consignment, and training, A to Z provides horse-drawn carriages at events around Southern CA and raises quality livestock for shows at the Antelope Valley Fair and Poppy Festival.

Paul Greenstein

Author & Historian

Paul Greenstein is co-author of Bread and Hyacinths: The Rise and Fall of Utopian Los Angeles, the only book-length history of the Llano del Rio Cooperative Colony, and it's relationship to the Los Angeles Times bombing, the American Socialist movement, and the period in which these events took place. He also owns a small but significant collection of Llano California ephemera.

Less Bells

Ambient Orchestral Project

After moving to Joshua Tree from Los Angeles. Violinist/composer Julie Carpenter fell in love with the extremes of the high desert. She weaves orchestral and electronic textures to inhabit that boundary between storm and sun. Less Bells also draws on the talents of Dain Luscombe, Leah Harmon, Rachel Smith, and Kenneth James Gibson. Find two music videos by Less Bells on our AR channels.

Louise Mathias

Poet & Photographer

Louise Mathias is the author of three books of poems, most recently What If The Invader Is Beautiful (Four Way Books). Based in Joshua Tree CA since 2009, she wanders widely.

Mojave Correspondence Club

Letter Exchange Founder

Sarah Hannah started the Mojave Correspondence Club in 2020 as a way to connect with people all over the world. She always loved receiving handwritten letters, and spreads that joy. She writes letters, posts mail art inspiration, hosts monthly mail exchanges, and hopes to bring happiness to mailboxes world wide!

Jean and Moriah in front of a suspended hammered metal gong

A Sound Bath Experience

Restorative Resonance

Artist/Healers Moriah Cain Gross and Jean Monte provide healing sound baths in the High Desert, Los Angeles and Ventura Counties of CA since 2017 with quartz crystal singing bowls, sound healing tubes, a symphonic gong and other immersive instruments. The Llano ruins are part of their origin story.

Monique Stevens

Attorney, Photographer, Weaver

Based in Littlerock, California, Monique enjoys being outside studying nature, learning the history of desert places, and finding materials to make baskets with. She also makes jewelry using natural materials such as Juniper seeds and pine needles, and weaves tapestry and other decorative fabric using looms.

Bonnie Tanaka

Graphic Artist

Bonnie Tanaka is an artist and designer for all surfaces. Tanaka lives in Northeast LA, working her design /art practice along with teaching graphic design to the next generation of designers at multiple Universities throughout the southland of CA.

The Traveling Postal Club

Mail Art Project

LA Artists, Anne Baumgartner & Molly C. Meng started The Traveling Postal Club as a public mail art event in August 2017 and grew it into a collaborative art project and community-building initiative. The simple curation of design and materials created a collective aesthetic and allowed people to layer their own stories and ideas onto the blank cards. Two artists with a passion for postal mail and community art outreach. Besides promoting and leading our collective project: TheTravelingPostalClub, we each make art and teach.

Leora Wien

Artist

Leora Wien was born in Santa Monica, CA. She holds a B.A. in American Studies/Cultural Studies from Wesleyan University. Her practice includes mixed media art, ‘zines and essays, and performance. Her work has been shown in Venice, Los Angeles, Paris, Basel, and Llano. She helped to produce innovative programming for LACMA’s Institute for Art & Cultures. The first iteration of May Queens, was created by Leora Wien in 2014, and incorporated contemporary feminist punk protest songs with those of Llano’s past.

Friends of Positional Projects

Meet Our Board of Directors

Dyn Ashby

Secretary

Dyn is a multidisciplinary artist working across art, fashion, craft, and material culture.
With more than 20 years in sustainable design, her practice is rooted in matter, place, and
the stories within. A founding member of Fibershed, she helped advance bioregional textile
systems through education and community stewardship. Her years at Creative Growth and
collaboration with Lee Brevard have given that curiosity space to wander. Today, wild soils
and discarded materials shape her studio practice.

Ann at Noah Purifoy's Outdoor Art Museum

Tanya Kane-Parry

Treasurer

Ann is a coach, author and muse whose life journey began in New York City and brought her to Washington, DC, Los Angeles, the High Mojave Desert of southern California and, recently, to Tucson, Arizona. Ann’s career was initially focused on environmental preservation and policy with roots in the very first Earth Day in New York City. Ann’s journey took a turn in 1996 when she became a coach and founded Moving Forward Coaching & Consulting, now Ann Vanino Coaching and Consulting.

Kaz Newman

President

Karyl (Kaz) Newman founded PositionalProjects.org in 2016 to create alternate experiences of place. Using digital map-based and augmented reality exhibits, she shares local histories and invites other artists and historians to contribute their responses at site-specific and virtual events designed to engage community in stewardship and preservation. She studied Llano as a 2016-2017 fellow at the Beinecke Library at Yale University where she earned her MFA.

Gene Dahilig

Member

Gene Dahilig is a maker, community builder, and former software developer whose career focused on mobile applications. As founder and president of the San Gabriel Valley Rivian Club, he organizes meetups, camping trips, off-road adventures, and scenic drives. He brings experience in technology, in creating shared experiences, and in outdoor engagement to the Friends of Positional Projects, supporting its work in preservation and place-based experiences.

Gloria Putnam

Member

Gloria is a physicist working in image sensors turned farmer. She founded the Angeles Crest Creamery exploring climate resilient food production in the San Gabriel foothills in Valyermo. Her resilient 70-acre ranch survived the Bobcat and Bridge fires and is home to 60 goats, four dogs and two pigs.

COLLABORATORS

Friends of Positional Projects

Meet Our Board of Directors

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