It added about two hours to the trip, was well worth it. I love interesting experiences, and this certainly was one. First of all, yes, the Salton Sea stinks, and it is a desolate area. In 1984 Leonard Knight came here and started building a mountain out of cement.
It is huge, this is just part of it.
Within two years it fell
, so he switched to adobe and paint. since it hardly rains here, that seems to have worked, although, it is very fragile. You can walk around but not up onto the mountain.
Here you can get an idea of how large it is. And yes, the message God is Love is all over this hill. 30 years after starting this project, in 2014 Leonard passed away. There is a group that maintains the mountain as much as possible, repainting, repairing. They have a sign, it does ask for donations but says: ” only give donations in the box or electronically, do not hand cash to anyone” This mountain is in Slab city, more on that in the next post. And everyone there is living off the grid, some quite honest, others not. Sort of like the real world outside.
Of course, The God that Leonard is talking about is Jesus. That is fine, unlike other secular or Jewish people, I’m ok with Christianity, especially here in America. As our society becomes more and more secular – we are seeing awful things happen with the breakdown of social norms. As long as I can be a free Jew here, I would like the Christians to enjoy their faith.
Like Rodia before him (the builder of the Watts towers) he used a lot of found objects, like this boat, probably from the nearby Salton Sea.
These are actual windows, I don’t know how see-through they are, as you can see, the entrance to this room is blocked off.
I could peek in here and see the smaller artworks. Maybe because this is out of the sun, the colors are bright and it may not need retouching.
How quirky is this. Yes, its’ not supermodels standing here, but these women give you a sense of size of the construction.
The Jordan River flowing into the Sea of Galilee, with the yellow brick road beside it. Notice the paint cans being uses in the installation after the paint is gone.
One of the donations they ask for is latex paint, and they clearly use it all the time.
This in itself is an art installation.
Or this.
Anything that stops moving is painted. Joel didn’t stay long enough for that to happen to him.
We had thought of driving here in December, when the whole family was in Palm Springs. I’m glad we didn’t, its’ a drive, the kids wouldn’t have liked the drive and since one can’t really climb here, they wouldn’t have appreciated the mountain either. So, I’m glad it was just me and Joel, exploring this strange area. I love how creative people can be, and I do appreciate the sentiment.
On to a few sights from Slab city itself.
Leah