ART | $5 SUGGESTED DONATION | ALL AGES | Desert Ephemeral is a commentary on Margaret’s experience as a young-mixed Native American girl growing up in the resort town of Palm Springs. Palm Springs has a fairly strong trace of Native American culture compared to other towns. However, anything truly authentic has been replaced with tourism. So in turn, Margaret would beg her dad to take her to the Indian Canyons, a tourist attraction, where the land was untouched. She would walk the trails and find hidden waterfalls tucked away in the mountains, or go into her favorite souvenir spots that held sage and precious stones. Even as the experience was through gift shops, it became special.

Through Desert Ephemeral, red curtains create the illusion of a stage, in the way that her resort town made her culture into spectacle.

Her photographs invoke a feeling of staying in a place in which people come and go. It also comments on the linear perspective of Native culture being experienced through trinkets and postcards; creating the feeling of being an outsider to one’s own heritage.

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Margaret Leyva is a young twenty-one year old/mom/photographer/Yaqui Indian/artist/facial mask enthusiast living in Los Angeles with her little baby and baby daddy. She aims to make her subjects feel beautiful and apart of a dreamy dimension. An artist on a budget, Margaret is a heavy advocate for using what's around her and crafting her own sets. She's a rising Virgo with her sun in Leo and moon in Sagittarius--if you're into that sort of thing.