Angelina Ribeiro Jones

I was born and raised in the Sonoran Desert and my connection to this place deeply informs my relationship to land, water, and human development. I am a historical landscape architect and I became interested in this profession through a passion for how people live in community with other organisms and how this relationship shapes the spaces we inhabit. My background is interdisciplinary and I have degrees in art history, design, landscape architecture and regional planning, and historic preservation. I rely heavily on my interdisciplinary background as an artist. I currently live near the fall line between the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain in Arlington County, Virginia with my partner and our sweet pup.

Desert Unicorn

This is the fruit of a plant that is common in the Sonoran Desert where it is called a variety of names, many of which invoke the devil (devil’s claw, cuernos del diablo, espuela del diablo). This conveys the perception of this plant as an agricultural weed that pesters livestock. However, the bracketed shape of the fruit depicted in this image is only seen after it is transformed by the extreme heat of the Sonoran Desert. It starts out as a supple, green crescent. The alchemy of desert heat makes the fruit brittle and rigidly hooked; ready to grab on to animals that meander past it.

Going to Ground

The giant hairy scorpions of the Sonoran Desert are so large that they eat other, smaller scorpions. The burgeoning heat of early summer wakes them from hibernation and they burrow deep into the desert soil to escape the solar rays and await prey looking to do the same. This scorpion follows the moisture line, moving as the heat of summer increases and the moisture in the soil recedes, always staying where the ground is coolest.

Sun Worship

Sonoran bobcats are known for scaling to the tops of tall saguaros. They form a magnificent, furry halo around the crown of the cacti absorbing the golden rays of the desert sun and radiating with the reflected heat. While so many other desert dwellers seek the shade, the bobcat scales the tallest vegetation in an effort to be as close as possible to the sun.