I never paid as much attention to dumpsters as I did during the spring and summer of 2016. The majority of dumpsters in Ojai are a bright, sun-faded turquoise, provided and maintained by E.J. Harrison & Sons. Only Ojai would have the most attractive and luminous dumpsters you’ve ever seen. 

They appear behind restaurants, alongside roads, at the ends of people’s driveways, definitely stashed behind the post office. I once saw a dumpster barely containing the front half of a car. Another time, rolls of old carpets piled atop one another like Lincoln logs. Each dumpster offered a curious story, and before I knew it, I was thinking of each as a unique, glowing creature, indulging in my regular habit of anthropomorphizing anything that makes me laugh.

Here you will find the current collection of Dumpsters of Ojai, an ongoing series that mixes a little nostalgia with a bit of satire as it documents the beauty and absurdity of these forms at this moment in time.