An Artist Seeks Reinvention by Living Off the Grid in “Far West”

Lala Abaddon doesn’t have an address. Her home, made from scratch, sits off a rocky road, deep in the desert mountains of the American West. “I wrote the realtor, and he thought I was crazy,” Abaddon recalls, about choosing the remote land. She made the move after feeling overwhelmed and depressed while living in New York City, where she was working as an artist. She wanted a big project, and to disconnect from technology. Her secluded home provided both. Throughout the years, she has built up a rugged little homestead—complete with a menagerie of animals and a skyscape like nothing she had imagined in her old life. In Stephen Michael Simon’s documentary short “Far West,” Abaddon talks about the transformative power of solitude, and about the hardships, friendships, and mistakes that she encountered as she rebuilt her day-to-day existence with an entirely new focus.