News Channel 3 Exclusive: New design for Palm Springs AIDS Memorial

The Palm Springs AIDS Memorial has been nearly a decade in the making, with challenges in finding the right design. News Channel 3 got an exclusive first look at the memorial's new design, which aims to be a gathering place of healing, hope and remembrance.

For Mike Richey, the AIDS crisis is deeply personal.

"I lost two life partners in the nineties, my best friend, and hundreds of friends around that same time. There were weeks where I didn't have a day without a memorial," he said.

Richey also worked for a biotech company in San Francisco that developed the HIV Viral Load Test that measures the amount of HIV in the blood and how well treatment is working. More than 40 years since the AIDS epidemic began to claim the lives of roughly 700,000 Americans, great strides have been made in the fight against the devastating disease. But Richey, who also serves as the co-chair of the National AIDS Memorial, said he noticed something was missing when he moved to Palm Springs.

"As we know, there's a large gay population here, and there are AIDS Memorials throughout the country. But there wasn't one in Palm Springs, so it puzzled me why that was the case," he said.

So Richey helped to create the Palm Springs AIDS Memorial Task Force, which for nearly a decade has been working to ensure the lives of those lost to HIV and AIDS are never forgotten. The team raised money to place the memorial in the downtown park, and commissioned renowned Valley artist Phillip K. Smith to design the piece pro bono.

The original design was a nine-foot-tall circular sculpture with an empty hole in the middle, which was scrapped after many people complained it felt disrespectful and evoked rude connotations.

"People said, 'You didn't talk to us,' and they were right," Richey said. Soon after the outcry boiled over, the task force and Smith held several community listening sessions plus an open-to-the-public town hall to help create a new design.

"We needed to hear their stories. And I think you'll see those stories have been heard," Richey said.

The new design is called The Well of Love. The 11-foot-tall stone structure shares three different messages: "Forever remembered. Forever loved. Forever celebrated." Each vertical, glass face holds an oval pool of tears unique to its message.

"Forever remembered" has a single drop sending ripples outward, representing the memory of each unique individual taken by AIDS. "Forever loved" has multiple drops, all merging together and representing the community of caregivers, including loved ones, organizations and medical staff. And "forever celebrated" presents the ripple effect from many drops coming together to represent the lasting effect of the lives celebrated through the memorial.

"One of the things that came out of the listening sessions was that people really wanted this memorial to be about the grief and loss, but also hope and joy. And when they presented that to me they were like 'Good luck with that Phil, I don't know how you're going to put that together,'" Smith said. "It was a tough challenge, but ultimately really a tear is the link between those two." 

Smith said The Well of Love provides an emotional life source, where tears are deposited and tears are withdrawn. "I think it's so great to see this sense of scale and where you can see the beautiful palm trees of the park, the sky, all of that collaged within. And certainly as you step in front of that, that reflection in the back of the glass, you'll see yourself in the memorial," he said.

The memorial also offers seating for people to pause and reflect. In addition, a virtual memorial will be created that may be accessed by a QR code.

"Phillip hit it. He found the joy and the sadness, and put it together in an art piece that's a memorial now," Richey said. "I think the most important thing for us is to honor the people of my generation and all those we lost, and also to introduce the young people that don't even know about HIV and AIDS and the death caused by that, and to educate and inform them, and get them involved as ambassadors for us as well."

The task force will present the new design to the Arts Commission and Palm Springs City Council for approval. The goal is for the memorial to be unveiled on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2025. About $600,000 still needs to be raised for materials and installation.

For more information or to donate, head to psaidsmemorial.org.