Americans understand their landscape a lot better than they understand their art. -Theodore Roosevelt

Editors Note: On the Horizon

In your hands is the 30th issue of the Lay of the Land. Imagine that it started almost a year ago, with members of the Center out in the field, doing the usual research and documentation for various programs and projects, in between more lengthy bouts of office work, sorting, filing, and planning. Up in the air over Phoenix, in the basements of the Biltmore, and on the flat expanse of Bonneville, to the digital storage devices containing the notes and images, which are then sorted, selected, enhanced, minutely manipulated, and ordered into the electronic document that holds it all together, without itself having any material form: just a long string of ones and zeros, which is then preciously preserved on a plastic disc. The disc gets driven down the street to Reprographics, on Sepulveda Boulevard, where the code is extracted, and like a plant emerging from a tiny seed in the soil, it grows into its full physical form: boxes and boxes containing folded paper dappled with ink. Then it flowers, with postage stamps like little blossoms, that allow it to be spread in the wind across the land, fluttering down into the nooks and crannies of architecture, where it lands in your hands, germinating. And if it weren’t for that, the final step, the process would stop, as there would be no point. So thanks, as always, to all of you, for being there.

- Lay of the Land Editors