Out for a Drive

Karen Halverson has photographed extensively in the desert and range country of the American West.

Since 1991 she has lived in Los Angeles, where she began photographing landscapes along the only road that traverses Los Angeles continuously from the mountains to the ocean. Mulholland Drive begins at the Pacific and winds tortuously about fifty miles along the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains, which separate Los Angeles proper from the San Fernando Valley. . . . To the east, the terrain becomes gentler, the population much denser, and the landscape radically altered according to the needs and taste of those who live there.

Halverson has written: "At any point along the way, Mulholland can be exquisitely beautiful when the air is clear, but it cuts to the heart when it is not. Glimpses of the ocean, the mountains, or the vast city below can make a drive along Mulholland breathtaking. . . . But what strikes me most about being up there on the crest is that I am witness to the struggle between a rather intractable natural landscape and the perceived needs of this ever-expanding population. Mulholland is at the juncture: it is where human will and ingenuity meet the forces of nature."

Source: Merry Foresta. On Location: Landscapes and Cityscapes in American Photography from the Museum's Collection (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1993).

Pictured: Karen Halverson (born 1941), Mulholland near Canyon Lake Drive, March 30, 1993,1993, chromogenic photographic print, 16 3/8 x 49 5/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Consolidated Natural Gas Company Foundation.