The High-Desert Art Trail: Galleries, Studios & Highway 62

The high desert has quietly become one of Southern California's real art regions — not one big museum but a scattering of galleries, studios and desert-art sites strung along Highway 62 from Morongo Valley to Wonder Valley. Give it an afternoon, or build a whole day, and you'll see why so many artists moved out here for the light and the space.

The galleries of Highway 62

Downtown Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms hold most of the storefront galleries, showing everything from desert landscape painting to sculpture and photography. It's a walkable, low-key scene — pop in, talk to the person at the desk (often the artist), and move on. Twentynine Palms adds its Oasis of Murals, a downtown covered in large history murals you can tour on foot.

Desert art you walk through

The region's signature works are outdoors. The Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Art Museum — ten acres of assemblage sculpture — is the essential one, free and open daily. Smaller roadside oddities dot the area too, from the crochet-stuffed former Fotomat kiosk of the World Famous Crochet Museum to art cars and installations you'll spot from the road.

Time your visit to the Art Tours

If you can, come in October. The Highway 62 Open Studio Art Tours, run by the Morongo Basin Cultural Arts Council for a quarter-century now, throw open more than a hundred artists' studios across eight desert communities over the first three weekends of the month. It's the largest event of its kind in the region — pick up the printed directory or the app, plot a route, and drive from studio to studio meeting makers and buying work straight off the wall. Even a couple of stops is a fine way to see how people actually live and work out here.

How to do it

Gallery hours in the desert are famously relaxed — many open Thursday to Sunday, afternoons only, and some by appointment or chance. Check before you drive to a specific one, keep your plans loose, and treat a closed door as an excuse to try the next place. It's that kind of scene, and better for it.