Salvation Mountain, Niland, California

While filling up my tank with $4.15 a gallon gas I heard, “Are you one of those brave women, like me, who travel alone?”  I turned to see a bleach blond middle aged woman in a van. She said she had a bed in there and told me how she came about owning her version of a camper van. She had a friendly smile that featured fractured front teeth. I’m sure there is a horror story about how they cam missing but I didn’t inquire. “Are you staying out at the slabs?” she asked. No was my answer. “There’s music tonight!”  “Thanks for letting me know”, I replied.

Actually I was headed in that direction but didn’t want to tell her, some things are best kept to one’s self, especially if you are a brave woman traveling along.  My main purpose was to visit Salvation Mountain, a historic art and iconic site.

It was truly amazing…I had seen photos but I was not expecting the large size and the colors to be  so brilliant. Given the subject it seemed fitting that primary colors would be used.

 

I also didn’t expect the painted cars and well, every surface was painted.

It is build out of traditional adobe with straw, plus trees and tires to help as structures. The grotto section was unexpected and I actually liked that part the best.

The creator is Leonard Knight, who 1967 sitting in his van in his sisters driveway, began repeating the Sinner Prayer –“Jesus, I’m a sinner, please come upon my body and into my heart. “  It was on that Wednesday…at 10:30 in the morning…all by himself…at age 35…he accepted Jesus into his heart and he hasn’t been the same ever since..

It is 50 feet high and 150 wide and drenched in paint which makes it strong and keeps the wind and rain from eroding the mountain away. 

 

He estimates that he has put well over 1000,000 gallons of paint on his mountain.  

In 2011, at age 80, he was placed in a home because he was suffering from dementia but the mountain is still maintained by dedicated volunteers. If you are out that way it is a must see attraction, bring paint, they can always use more.

Just on up the hill was the famed Slab City, my next destination.

 

Just on up the hill was the famed Slab City, my next destination.  It was basically a very large campground/trailer park with no hookups and all free.  I drove around a little but I felt a little like a voyeur so I didn’t stay too long.

I loved this tree with the shoes.  I always wasn’t to toss a pair of shoes onto a telephone wire but I have never had the nerve.  I think I will now add it to my bucket list and get a couple of friends to join me in my tennis shoe tossing effort.

The name comes from the concrete slabs that were left from a abandoned military base.  At any given time there can be from 200-2,000 residents.  A lot of them are snowbirds that leave in the summer but now with the economy so bad it has become the last stop for many.

It has a Mad Max feel about it and truly a placed to go if you want to be unplugged. It isn’t the most scenic place but it is free.  I notice several examples of outsider art. 

This was the sign as I was leaving. You have to have a sense of humor to live in desert with no utilities.

 

 

 

 

 

Anza-Borrego Insipiration Wash

 

Eager to start the day I rose with the birds and was treated with a new life bird, the White-winged Dove.  Notice the white edge to its wing.

 

Another bird nearby was a Eurasian Collard Dove which has a dark semi circle on its neck. 

I though the best one I saw was a Costas Hummingbird. 

But then a couple of Roadrunners showed up, and well it is hard to top a roadrunner even if they are common in this area.  They weren’t common to me.

 I followed then through the campground until I finally took a good photo. Whew, they are fast runners.

 

My plan was to join the park naturalist at a place called Inspiration Wash for a walk to look at flowers. The walk was beautiful with lots of fantastic vistas.

We only found two flowers a Mojave-Aster (Xylorhiza tortifolia).

 And a desert vetch.

 

After climbing a small hill I could look back and see the wash that we had just walked. 

From there I drove over to the Narrows Earth Trail which deserves its own blog, so look for it tomorrow.

On my way back to camp I passed some metal sculptures in the desert and stopped for a look see.  They were created by Ricardo Breceda for Galleta Meadows Estates in Borrego Springs. There are over 129 sculptures and I only saw a few.  I didn’t know there were so many until I came home and looked searched on the internet. 

 

I only saw a few and these are a couple of my favorites. Collectively they are called “Sky Art”, a blend of craftsmanship and placement in the open desert landscape.  Each piece I did see looked it came there on its own accord.

 

 

Goldwell Open Air Museum

From Hoover Dam I drove back to Death Valley made a couple of stops along the way.  I had heard about Goldwell Open Air Museum, located near the ghost town of Ryolite, and was looking forward to seeing it.

The first and probably the most famous sculpture were created by Albert Szukalski, a Belgian artist who came here in 1984. The Last Supper, was modeled after Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece. The individual figures were made by draping plaster coated burlap over live models from Beatty who had to stand in the hot sun for 20 minutes until the plaster dried. It is fitting that they look ghostly and might have come from the town.

In the same year, using the same techniques, Szukalski also created Ghost Rider, a plaster figure preparing to mount a bicycle that belonged to his friend John.  It just invited one to interact with it as did all of the other pieces in the museum.

On the side of the hill was the Lady Desert: The Venus of Nevada, welcoming visitors to the area.  Hugo Heyrman, a computer artist, first created it on the computer and then used cinder blocks to make the final version as seen here.  It looks very much like the pixel graphic designers had to contend with in the early days of computer graphics.

The Tribute to Shorty Harris by Fred Bervoets was created to remember the prospector whose mining discovery of 1904 let to the gold rush.  The penguin is sort of a self portrait of the artist who was from the cold country of Belgium and felt out of place in this hot desert. He also felt that the miner needed a companion.

 

I almost missed the work of Dre Peters who created the hand-carved female version of Icarus called Icara.  Looking up at the sculpture forces you to have the feeling of flying.

One of my favorites was Sofie Siegmann’s Sit Here!, created in 2000.  It has not worn well in the desert and several of the tiles have come off. Sill it was fun to see and inspiring.

 

You can see Venus to the right in the distance.

On the porch of the visitor center was this sculpture made from rusted bits. It is an idea I might try on my fence at home. Goodness knows there are enough rusty objects to be found in the woods surrounding my home.

 

Here is another piece but I could not find any information about it. To me it represented the Universe.

 

 

The Museum wasn't kept up as good as I hoped and there was no one in the museum store/information center (the building in the photo below).  Everything looked abandoned like the town nearby. I am still very glad that I took the time to visit.  I liked it much more than Hoover Dam.



 

HERE is a good web site about the artists.

 

Silent Spring

I was inspired by Trillium's blog and decided to upload this image of one of my assemblages, now titled, "Silent Spring". I mean no disrespect to Rachel Carson. I think she might find the humor in this piece since it was made entirely from rusty bits found along the Shenandoah River. Recycle. Reuse.