Baroque Medusa

Palm Springs Spinners is a digital artwork I created after relocating to the Coachella Valley, inspired by the wind turbines that stretch across the desert outside Palm Springs, California. Seeing them almost daily, I began imagining them differently — not as turbines, but as oversized wind spinners rising from the desert floor like surreal mechanical flowers.

black and white photograph of the artist’s ear used as source material for palm springs spinners abstract distortions artwork by baroque medusa — The turbine “petals” in Palm Springs Spinners began as a photograph of my ear before digital manipulation.

How I Created Palm Springs Spinners

The spinner “petals” began as a photograph of my ear. I converted the image to black and white, cut out the shape, and digitally manipulated it using distortion and liquify techniques until the form transformed into something entirely new. The spheres anchoring several of the spinners came from a macro photograph of my dog’s toy ball, enlarged to capture its texture and recolored to hold the forms together visually. This process reflects how I work within Abstract Distortions: dismantling familiar photographs and rebuilding them into unexpected forms where everyday objects lose their identity and become something entirely new.