{"id":161355,"date":"2022-09-08T17:45:29","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T21:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=161355"},"modified":"2022-09-12T12:58:26","modified_gmt":"2022-09-12T16:58:26","slug":"free-dirt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2022\/09\/08\/free-dirt\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Dirt"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_161359\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/img_5851.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-161359\" class=\"wp-image-161359 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/img_5851-1024x767.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"767\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/img_5851-1024x767.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/img_5851-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/img_5851-768x575.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/img_5851.jpg 1119w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-161359\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Free dirt. Photograph via Craigslist.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the past three years, I\u2019ve filled a folder on my desktop with pictures of dirt that I found on Craigslist. The dirt in each picture was offered free of charge to whoever was willing to pick it up (\u201cYou haul\u201d) or, if you were lucky, a free-dirter might have offered free delivery. Depending on the angle and composition of the images, \u201cfree dirt\u201d posts on Craigslist can look like unintentional landscape vistas. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some shots feature calloused hands covered in tawny fill dirt, vignetted by palm trees and paved driveways in postwar cul-de-sacs. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are endless frames of earth spilling onto asphalt, flattened mounds of rich brown soil indented with tire tracks, craggy piles of dirt gathered evenly along the perimeters of blue tarp in driveways. Where I\u2019m from, in Southern California, free dirt is abundant.<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dirt moves and circulates as part of its role in the man-made ecosystem of building, demolishing, and rebuilding<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. But there\u2019s a paradox: the more that dirt is touched and handled by human hands, the more expensive it becomes to move around. If you bring \u201cnon-native\u201d soil to a construction project, you are subject to costly soils testing. When a project has tight specifications\u2014public libraries, for instance, have highly regulated dimensions and measurements\u2014leftover dirt becomes surplus material. And you can\u2019t simply throw it out. Disposing of dirt in Southern California is a long, bureaucratic process, one San Diego landscaper told me; one must apply for a permit to dump excess dirt and must transport it in a vehicle of a particular class. Some construction companies have even turned to posting their excess soil inventories online via dirt-matching sites. (\u201cConnecting people who have dirt with people who need dirt,\u201d reads the ad copy on DirtMatch.com. They boast 5,914 matches in the last ninety days.) For the homeowner who just wants to build up the ground around their new in-ground pool or the young couple working on the raised beds in their vegetable garden, all of this is expensive and time-consuming. And so they turn to Craigslist, and to the world of free dirt.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_161360\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/cl-free-dirt-07.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-161360\" class=\"wp-image-161360 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/cl-free-dirt-07-1024x502.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"502\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/cl-free-dirt-07-1024x502.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/cl-free-dirt-07-300x147.png 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/cl-free-dirt-07-768x377.png 768w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/cl-free-dirt-07.png 1230w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-161360\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A free-dirt listing on Craigslist.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The language in these online ads is friendly; the soil identification is anecdotal. \u201cFill,\u201d or nutrient-poor excess dirt, is most abundant and available online because it\u2019s surfeit junk\u2014<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the petty cash of land use. \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This was dug up from our backyard when redoing our lawn,\u201d reads a recent post from Rancho Bernardo, alongside a photo of a medium-size pile of brown dirt and the neon-green handle of a shovel. \u201cI don\u2019t have a truck so you will have to pick up but I can give a helping hand to load the dirt.\u201d It\u2019s nothing fancy, even in the world of dirt.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_161362\" style=\"width: 685px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/00q0q_jt2ujvdmljk_1200x900.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-161362\" class=\"wp-image-161362 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/00q0q_jt2ujvdmljk_1200x900.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"675\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/00q0q_jt2ujvdmljk_1200x900.jpg 675w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/00q0q_jt2ujvdmljk_1200x900-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-161362\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Free dirt. Photograph via Craigslist.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Still, these photos fascinate me, in part for their strange resonances. In my folder and out of context, free-dirt photos can come to look strangely like Ansel Adams photographs; the sunlight hits Martin from Pasadena\u2019s project scraps the way it might strike the Half Dome in Yosemite. Dirt piles at a construction site at an East County community college, captured at high noon, can look oddly like a mountain range shot in deep contrast. Scale is erased. Shadows deepen the sense of something like the sublime.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_161363\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/00r0r_fthpwgz0qna_1200x900.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-161363\" class=\"wp-image-161363 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/00r0r_fthpwgz0qna_1200x900-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/00r0r_fthpwgz0qna_1200x900-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/00r0r_fthpwgz0qna_1200x900-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/00r0r_fthpwgz0qna_1200x900-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/00r0r_fthpwgz0qna_1200x900.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-161363\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Free dirt. Photograph via Craigslist.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But f<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ree-dirt photos, unlike most images of monumental landscapes, are evidence of people\u2019s bodily relationship with the land: the shadow silhouette, the calloused hands, the traces of human labor punctuated by the presence of tools coated in dust next to the green coil of a garden hose; t<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">he hint of a paved sidewalk in the corner frame, a picket fence, or a half-cameo profile of a worker, maybe somebody\u2019s uncle, in a black cap and a pair of Carhartts. In one photo I see, in his own backyard in Tarzana, a city surveyor turned amateur landscape photographer: in the background there are the black asphalt and the manicured sidewalks of tract housing, and a residential-size recycling bin frames two conical scoops of dirt, one darker than the other\u2014and in the foreground, nearly centered, is the shadow of a figure holding the basic square of a smartphone above their head to get the most comprehensive perspective. This reminds me, strangely, of a 1939 photograph of a levee, taken by a geological engineer, which features the silhouette of the surveyor hired by the construction company, backlit by the sun as he documents both the site and his own portrait.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_161364\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/surveyor-1936.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-161364\" class=\"size-large wp-image-161364\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/surveyor-1936.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"758\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/surveyor-1936.jpeg 758w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/surveyor-1936-300x237.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-161364\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The inside of the Cajalco Reservoir, with a ninety-foot levee. Riverside, November 19, 1939. Photograph courtesy of the University of Southern California Libraries and the California Historical Society. Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pictures like this\u2014both<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> formal landscape imagery and images from the geological survey\u2014were used as propaganda to build a global understanding of American \u201cpublic land\u201d in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. U.S. Geological Survey teams organized, designated, and measured borders and territory boundaries, cataloguing the land in photographs that document the overarching aesthetics of what is now considered the mythic American West. \u201cPhotography was not only crucial in fostering a consciousness of conservation of public lands,\u201d writes Ana Cecilia Alvarez <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">for <em>Real Life<\/em>, \u201cbut it also determined how these exceptional places were framed and consumed.\u201d <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Curator Elizabeth Kathleen Mitchell writes that \u201ctwo types of landscape photographs [were] circulating in Washington, D.C.,\u201d in the 1860s: \u201cthe horrific pictures of Civil War battlefields\u201d and sumptuous C-prints of Yosemite Valley.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_161366\" style=\"width: 688px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/moving-mountains.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-161366\" class=\"wp-image-161366\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/moving-mountains.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"678\" height=\"840\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/moving-mountains.jpg 404w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/moving-mountains-242x300.jpg 242w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-161366\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mountains being moved in Lopez Canyon, April 22, 1957. Photograph courtesy of the University of Southern California Libraries and the California Historical Society. Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>There is a way to read free-dirt photographs as contemporary, accidental, sideways takes on these classic American myths. <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Craigslist, they point to places where dirt and aspiration combine toward the development of yet another private dream, owned or rented, summarized by its weight in piles of soil. Build a yard or raised garden bed with a neighbor\u2019s dirt. This swap meet of the commons is the American Dream made surplus. Picture hills of leftover construction fill in the cul-de-sacs of tract housing or a half-built house erected only to blight itself with its own materials: sacks of soil, slumped on the perimeter of an unrealized yard. These, too, are American monuments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, I caught my mother singing through her kitchen, carrying a bag of dirt in her arms. \u201cThey gave me the good dirt,\u201d she said. The landscapers had given it to her off their truck, for free.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_161367\" style=\"width: 685px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/00i0i_72vebn4lmxh_1200x900.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-161367\" class=\"wp-image-161367 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/00i0i_72vebn4lmxh_1200x900.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"675\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/00i0i_72vebn4lmxh_1200x900.jpg 675w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/00i0i_72vebn4lmxh_1200x900-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-161367\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Free dirt. Photograph via Craigslist.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em><br \/>\nAngella D&#8217;Avignon is a writer in California.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cFor the past three years, I\u2019ve filled a folder on my desktop with pictures of dirt that I found on Craigslist.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2279,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30918],"tags":[16817,12198,6689,68517,18118,68518],"class_list":["post-161355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-photography","tag-american-west","tag-ansel-adams","tag-dirt","tag-landscaping","tag-southern-california","tag-yosemite"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Free Dirt by Angella 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