“Cosmic American” music founder Gram Parsons died at Joshua Tree, California, on September 19, 1973. He was 26 years old. Now, more than half a century later, devotees still make pilgrimages to the place where his life ended.

Because they had made a pact, Phil Kaufman acquired Parsons’ body at the airport and took it back to the desert for a poorly planned, highly unorthodox cremation. Around this event exists a mass of both fact and legend.

This series commemorates the love that Gram Parsons felt for Joshua Tree, and various aspects of his life and genius.

The Dreamings

The Dreamtime is a temporary autonomous zone where anything goes. Change is the only constant. Things are consistent through their very inconsistency. Symbolism can be traditional and shared throughout the culture, or it can be very personal and subjective.

The Dreamtime reconciles opposites. In the Dreamtime it can be day and night, past and present, simultaneously. Sun and stars, moon and rainbow, can coexist. Things can be seen from inside and outside, from level ground and from the sky above. Abstract and representational; spiritual and material; in the Dreamtime all dichotomies are reconciled.

Like the Australian Aboriginal art which inspires them, the paintings have no up-down orientation but can be hung any way. In line with tradition, most of the paint is applied with twigs from trees.

Gram Parsons Dreaming #1 (sold)

Gram Parsons Dreaming #2 (sold)

Gram Parsons Dreaming #3

Cap Rock, Joshua trees, a psychedelic sky in turmoil, and fire symbolizing either the cremation or the burning desert sun.

round 16″ diameter, acrylics on masonite, ready to hang

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Gram Parsons Dreaming #4

Cap Rock, Joshua trees, the cremation fire and smoke, acoustic guitars.

16″ diameter, acrylic paints on masonite, ready to hang
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Gram Parsons Dreaming #5 (sold)

with Joshua trees, and part of the hat Parsons wore with the rhinestone cowboy suit made for him by the designer Nudie.
Also, some wild horses. (Who really wrote that song?)
And Cap Rock, the nearest natural feature to where Parsons and his coffin were set afire.
The mass of flame is both the desert sun and the scene of the botched cremation.

Gram Parsons Dreaming #6

Amid Joshua trees, a shadowy figure embraces his guitar. From the coffin, flame ascends to the cremation fireball. Or maybe it’s only the searing desert sun. Or a symbolic Star. All is enclosed within the frame of a mirror, said to be the only object in Room 8 not replaced since Gram Parsons died.
Shown here against two different color backgrounds
16″ diameter, acrylic paints on masonite, ready to hang
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Gram Parsons Dreaming #7 (re-homed)

What might be seen on a trippy day, or even an ordinary day
16″ diameter, acrylic paints on masonite, ready to hang
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Gram Parsons Dreaming #8

In the grand tradition of Gram Parsons iconography, this round 16″ original painting includes
Cap Rock, Joshua trees, a Grievous Angel wing, the coffin, the cremation fire, wild horses, stars from the hat brim, sun, moon, and Room 8 door numeral.
16″ diameter acrylics on medium density fiberboard
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Gram Parsons Dreaming #9 (sold)

Central is the desert sun/cremation blaze.
The border is Mobius strip/infinity symbol/Room 8 reference.
A silhouetted Gram figure sits in meditation, with chakras and an aura.
accompanied by Joshua trees, horses with attitude, UFOs, and kites.
(Ian Dunlop’s book tells how he and Gram went kite-flying and agreed that it was like an out-of-body experience. Gram said his father made kites for him and took him out to fly them.)
This painting has glints of metallic copper.

A round painting, 12″ diameter Acrylics on MDF

Gram Parsons Dreaming #10

It includes Joshua Trees (of course); Möbius strip / infinity symbol / Room 8 numeral;
Grievous Angel wings; wild horses; kites and crystal balls (both referenced in Ian Dunlop’s book)

The painting is acrylic on medium density fiberboard, circular and 12″ in diameter.
(finished on New Years Eve 2023)
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Gram Parsons Dreaming #11 

Centered on Joshua trees, with cannabis leaves in the style of Nudie, designer of the rhinestone cowboy suits.
A still figure whose mind is soaring. (Remember when he went tripping in the High Desert with Keith Richards and other friends?)
A flaming coffin.
A spacecraft illuminates Cap Rock.
The Safe at Home shrine.
Acrylics on medium density fiberboard, round 16″ diameter, ready to hang.
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Gram Parsons Dreaming #12

A variation on #11

Centered on Joshua trees.
A still figure whose mind is soaring. (Remember when he went tripping in the High Desert with Keith Richards and other friends?)
A flaming coffin. Some wild horses.
A spacecraft illuminates Cap Rock.
The Safe at Home shrine.
Acrylics on medium density fiberboard, round 16″ diameter, ready to hang.
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Gram Parsons Dreaming #13

The red, white and blue shirt with the fringe and fancy belt.
The blue velvet pants, said to have belonged to Mick Jagger then to Keith Richards before being given to Gram, who later passed them on to John Nuese.
The green top hat that Gram wore and then gave to Leon Russell, who rocked it throughout the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour.
The gorgeous purple shirt lovingly made for Gram by Pamela Des Barres. The GP initials she embroidered also appear in the central star of the painting.
The border is the silver choker that now belongs to Polly Parsons.
Acrylics on medium density fiberboard, round 16″ diameter, ready to hang.
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