“Mirage” by Doug Aitken.

“Monument” by Will Boone.

“Curves and Zig Zags” by Claudia Comte.

“La Fiesta en el Desierto” by Armando Lerma.

“Visible Distance” by Jennifer Bolande.

“Hollow Earth” by Glenn Kaino.

“The Circle of Land and Sky” by Phillip K. Smith III.

“I Am” by Tavares Strachan.

True wants to be an artist when she grows up, so to celebrate her 11th birthday, we took her to visit the Desert X installations, and called her celebration, “True 11 X.” The Coachella Valley did all the work for us, and all we had to do was show up to the exhibits and enjoy it. Ben and I researched the pieces beforehand to determine what we thought was age appropriate (and ones that she would appreciate) and the list above is what we came up with. Her favorite was “The Land of Circle and Sky” because she loved how the mirrors looked like sticks in the ground and reflected the surroundings. My favorite was “Hollow Earth.” It was such an insane optical illusion and I love the re-purposing of an abandoned shack. Our least favorite was “I Am” because when we got there, during the time it said it would be open, the exhibit was closed. We were so bummed. It would have been cool to get an “I am 11!” picture. While we missed out on that one, we still were able to plenty of them, so True was very happy about that.

I made her 11-x sign with silver poster board that I cut out and taped onto dowels. For each exhibition we visited, she had me take a instax picture of her and her 11-x sign. She has a nice collection of photos to remember her 11th birthday. And of course, we are in Palm Springs after all, so we had to go to the Ace to get some birthday photo booth pictures. Our 11 year old was quite delighted with how she rang in another year of life!

Read here to see her breakfast in bed and here for her birthday dress.

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