Joe Holliday is a visionary artist, production designer and renegade anthropologist.

He also holds the Guinness World Record for how many clothespins he can attach to his face.

Joe is an artist I have worked with extensively on many projects, and have always enjoyed documenting said ventures with a certain extra something. Perhaps this is because, as he has told me on more than one occasion, he enjoys creating things that are difficult to photograph or otherwise document.

Most notably, a 13-foot tall woolly mammoth made from blown tires and car parts.

Said mammoth was built inside of the TOW workspace in downtown Los Angeles, as the centerpiece of Joe's 'Modern Nomads' art exhibit. It resided inside TOW for almost a year before the proper means were achieved and location found to give the mammoth a more appropriate permanent resting place.

The perfect location indeed presented itself - in the form of an apocalyptic sculpture garden, full of art cars and rusty metal, called East Jesus.

East Jesus is an outskirt of Slab City, CA. It is such a bloody fantastic and magical place, that it has its own section on this website.

Fundraiser events were held, a trailer was rented, and the mammoth was transported out to Slab City, where the Mammoth Erection Fest commemorated the mammoth's arrival at its new home.

The process of any project Joe is working on is always interesting, as he works with so many different obscure found materials, which often require adventuring out into the world to find. This could mean anything from collecting blown tires off the side of the road for weeks, to walking the shores of the Salton Sea, filling trash bag after trash bag with mummified tilapia fish.

One of the most memorable undertakings I've undertaken with Mr. Holliday was working as his assistant (effectively making me assistant production designer, assistant prop master, assistant set builder, set photographer and extra) on "The Sounds of Silence", a CSUN student project. Some of Joe's finest work, in my opinion - and certainly among the most fun I've had photographing anything ever. You can click the link below to see the entire gallery of production stills I shot over the weeks of shooting.

all material on this site copyright 2012 by flip cassidy