Rainmakers: Leonard Knight and Salvation Mountain
Mood:
cheeky
Topic: Crafty!
Though I am a complete and total sucker for Weird America-style projects, outsider art such as The Orange Show, and all works great and terrible produced for Burning Man every year, I have to admit that I wasn't immediately sold on Salvation Mountain.
This comes from my resistance to religious prosthelyzing, and I wasn't sure what to expect from a recent visit to Salvation Mountain, which is adjacent to Slab City. Slab City is a true community experiment; the site of an old military base, it is now inhabited by retirees, artists, and a few meth-addicted souls who occasionally come out at night to shine a few doorknobs or rifle through the garbage of the locals.
I love the Slabs; they're a wonderful experiment in autonomous community, a world apart, a self-organizing clan, and Leonard Knight -- as I discovered when I visited the Niland area last winter -- fits right in. Leonard spent the first 40 or so years of his life not quite fitting in anywhere. He tried a variety of jobs, and at one point was drafted into the Army during the Korean War. With each job he took on, he realized that none of them were suitable. He didn't like the rigurous work of school, hated ordering people around in the Army, and found much of the adult, work-a-day world to be dull and without inspiration.
In 1967, a visit to his sister's house in San Diego, CA turned him on to the love of Jesus Christ, and after his epiphany, he set about spreading the news to anyone who would listen. Unfortunately, he didn't like the hierarchy of the church, and the pastors, preachers and ministers in such places weren't very kind to his vision of religion, either, so Leonard continued to drift.
He returned to his hometown of Burlington, Vermont in 1970, and just after his return, someone in a hot air balloon passed over the town. Instantly inspired, and thinking a hot air balloon would be a wonderful way to spread the word, Leonard set about getting some help in purchasing one. Unfortunately, no one else saw his vision, and some time after, he started sewing his own!
Leonard went to work changing big-rig tires in Quartzite, Arizona in 1984, and eventually he and his employer ended up taking a trip to Niland, CA, home of Slab City. Leonard liked the spirit of the area, and shortly thereafter, he relocated to the Slabs. He made several attempts to get his handmade balloon up in the air in order to get his message to the public, but after several failures, he decided instead to make an art project on an abandoned hillside just outside of the Slabs that would project his message loud and clear.
For the past 23 years, Salvation Mountain has grown into a kind of Wizard of God (there's even a Yellow Brick Road leading to the top!); it's a fantasyland for the child at heart, for lovers of outsider art, and for anyone needing a little bit of inspiration, no matter their race, creed, or sex.
People have come to admire, to laugh, and to talk to and play music with Leonard. They have also tried to get the mountain shut down due to potential environmental hazards, which is a joke due to both the former uses of the place as a military base and the fact that it's adjacent to The Salton Sea, which was the site of a much more environmentally egregious disaster decades before.
In 2002, Barbara Boxer officially entered Salvation Mountain into the Congressional Record as a national treasure, and to this day, Leonard and his message remain an integral part of the area.
To learn more about why Leonard Knight constructed Salvation Mountain, you may read his bio and the history of the area and his project here.
celebratory
I wanted to share this with everyone because I have known Lori for years and think she's simply amazing! Lori is a connector of people and projects, and is an excellent event producer. She also is a crafty woman, and makes these amazing pieces of clothing out of repurposed men's ties. I've seen other ones like this for a lot more money, but Lori puts a lot of effort into her work, and offers her designs for $50 apiece, which is a lot lower than most other producers. If you'd like to order one, or to learn more about how they're made, please leave a comment at the bottom of this entry with your email address or a link to your website, and we'll get back to you right away. 
happy