I am Perry Hoffman, artist, photographer, mosaic maker, tile maker and creator of the Tile House in the Mojave desert... specifically in Wonder Valley just east of Twentynine Palms.

I was born in 1953 in Los Angeles at Queen of Angels Hospital.  My parents were New York Jews - Rose & Ben - who always taught peace, love, understanding and compassion for all people and had a love of art and music. I learned these things early. Grateful.

I studied art in first grade and got in trouble for drawing a nude, but I didn’t when I studied art at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia in the early seventies - played with Paul Reubens and David Hasselhoff. Caused a ruckus, with a few regrets, but otherwise had a fun time.

In 1975 I migrated to San Francisco experimenting with color xerox collage and mail art, photography and clay and small backyard gardens. Had some great classes with Toby Klayman in San Francisco who taught Business and was a visual artist. I am forever grateful for having been introduced to postcards. In 2ooo, the stark and open, hard and hot, sometimes freezing desert embraced me.

 2oo8: I explored an in depth study of life and my surroundings with camera in hand and embarked on a mosaic project taking on an entire house inside and out with the environs of Joshua Tree National Park at my side. The Tile House was inspired by my first visit to Watts Towers when I was ten years old and currently by the wildlife, huge skies and magic of the desert, not to mention the fragments of tile one can find in the sand.

I met Douglas Smith in 2005 online and everything changed - got married on the first “legal” day. Now the Tile House is adorned with his furniture and also some collaborations around the dining table. Grateful.