Since last March, three Sonoma Academy students worked tirelessly to bring what started as a miniature Father’s Day gift to a full-scale art installation at Burning Man Arts Festival this past summer.
Burning Man is a week-long arts festival based in Black Rock Desert, Nevada. Each Labor Day, 70,000 people create a temporary city in the playa to view large-scale art, promote sustainability and engage in the community. This summer, Harper Clark (‘26), Andrew Yang (‘26) and Chloe Yang (‘27) teamed up to create an art piece of their own to bring to the annual event.
Harper’s father, Kevin Clark, is a longtime attendee of Burning Man, having created art for the festival and others like it for the last 20 years. With the help of his knowledge and crew, the three teens created “Guma,” a half-dinosaur, half-lizard.
The 65-foot-long build was constructed by the team over the course of the summer, with additional help from volunteer SA students. The original plan was to have the students weld, but the team quickly realized that teaching the skill needed to maintain structural integrity was not feasible. Laughing, Andrew explained, “We were definitely not qualified to do that; it was more of a morale boost if anything.”
After months of designing, painting, sanding and decorating, Guma was ready to hit the road. Carefully disassembled, padded and packed up, Guma was transported via trailers to the dusty destination.
The first four days of the festival were spent rebuilding Guma: “Putting it together, that was like the easy part. But the domes… the domes were the worst.” The Yangs explained how people tended to walk along the spine of Guma: “Art cars would come by and people would have mini raves in front and on top of the piece, consequently stepping on and smashing all the glass domes.”
Guma was quite the hit, garnering so many visitors that a queue had to be formed: “It was like Disneyland with 30-minute lines just to get on top of it,” Chloe joked.
As the official artist, Harper was a walking spokesperson for Guma; her dad would parade her all around the festival. “I had to talk to so many people on the stupid art tours. And you know when they say, ‘when you’re nervous, just picture everybody naked?’ I didn’t even have to!”
Art installations differed drastically at the festival, even with the encompassing theme of “Tomorrow, Today.” Installations could be made of anything from metal to tiny ceramic beads. Some people even brought pieces made of wood that would then be burnt throughout the week.
Daily routines differed between the three, but a normal day consisted of waking up to blasting EDM music, biking around to see art before it got hot, taking a lunchtime nap and then working on Guma or at the camp the rest of the day.
Each campsite consisted of a cluster of attendees’ tents and trailers and at least one stall giving out free food or drinks. Almost every camp had a set-in-stone theme: “There was one where everything, everything, was pink and they served vegan ice cream,” Andrew said, “it was kinda disgusting.” “My favorite camp,” Harper cut in, “was giving out shaved ice with all different fresh fruit purees.”
The Yang/Clark camp’s theme was “weird steel,” based on the fully metal bar Kevin had built for the occasion. The bar’s specialty was grilled cheese and advice, whereas another shack provided Safeway cookies and Chloe’s riddles. “It was really funny because some people were really smart, and others gave up because they were too drunk,” Chloe said.
As far as being in a desert at the end of summer goes, the weather wasn’t unbearable. If anything, the worst part of the festival was the dust. Dust storms with wind speeds up to 50 miles per hour ripped entire installations out of the ground. “You couldn’t survive without goggles,” Andrew said, “[Dust] just got everywhere. You would use WetWipes to clean yourself off before bed, just to wake up and get covered again.”
This year was extra special as the desert experienced multiple lightning storms, causing all the dust to turn into mud. Harper explained, “If you stepped outside, a layer of mud would stick to your shoe. Then you take another step, and a new layer of it. By the end of the day, I was walking around with five pounds of extra mud-weight.”
All in all, the festival was a success, and each of the three students had their own takeaways.
From Chloe: “The best part was that the whole thing is about self-expression. No one is going to judge or get judged based on what they wear or make.”
From Andrew: “I really loved the gifting community. Everything was about giving back, so while we gave out cookies, people brought us necklaces or crystals or trinkets.”
From Harper: “Sometimes, you would just stumble upon the best art you’ve ever seen or the best food you’ve ever eaten. There was a make-shift roller rink that only played disco music, and I spent forever just looking for a pair of skates that fit, but we just skated for hours, and it was great.”