The Folk Art Messenger: The Interactive Mountain of Leonard Knight [Salvation Mountain]

FolkArt.org ^ | Oct 4 2009 | Larry Yust

[Daffynition]

[snip]

Leonard Knight has spent 14 years sculpting and painting Salvation Mountain in the California desert near Niland, in Imperial County, east of the Salton Sea, 200 miles from Los Angeles. The mountain is about as tall as a three-story building and as wide as a football field. It is covered with adobe and layer after layer of paint. County supervisors once labeled Salvation Mountain a “toxic nightmare” and tried to bulldoze it down. But supporters of the site rallied by sending letters and petitions. Knight himself had a set of soil tests made proving that no dangerous levels of hazardous materials were to be found there, and the supervisors dropped their campaign to get rid of Salvation Mountain and its creator.

Knight calls himself a loner, but he doesn’t act like one. “I love to greet people,” he says. “No matter what I’m doing, if people come in, I’m gonna stop, and I’m gonna say hi to them and give them a welcome.”

A car drives up and turns off the blacktop, bumps over the packed desert earth and stops a polite distance away from the truck with a house built on the back, where Knight lives with his cat. A man and a woman climb out of the car, and Knight hurries to greet them. They explain that they’ve come from Pennsylvania to see the mountain.

[snip]

[Daffynition]

Leonard will be the first to tell you that he’s not an artist. He almost blushes at any comparison.

What he has done however, that sets him apart, is to express his passion on a large scale in a way that has not been seen before. He sculpts his subjects out of adobe and then coats them with paint. The first few coats absorb into the dirt. If you have ever painted anything you know that if you put on too much paint, the paint will drip and run. That’s what Leonard does – he puts on as much paint as he can. As a result, you will see drips everywhere on the mountain. That’s his style. I call it the "splooch" method. He blobs the paint on rather than paints it on. Much of the mountain has 10 to 15 coats of paint on it. Leonard doesn’t worry too much about the drips because he knows that he will paint it over again. The more paint, the tougher it is.

This is Leonard’s art – it is simple, true, and honest.

[Daffynition]

Clickable thumbnails here

[WorkingClassFilth]

Too bad his work isn’t a tribute to Obama or sodomy or any other pet leftist ideal. Only in that way could he be considered a true folk artist and permently get the earth first league and alphabet agencies off his back.

All the same, way to go, Leonard! This is a great use of private property - shame it’s not closer to LA.

[Daffynition]

..."This is a great use of private property"

I don't think this is private property. From what I have read, Knight even admits it , he is a squatter on government land.

[Daffynition]

Barbra Boxer declares him a national treasure

Some think it is a toxic waste dump...

"Even the state of California, which owns the land, donated gallons of the yellow normally used for painting lines on roads. Of course local authorities had to stick in their oar by declaring Salvation Mountain a toxic dump. They were busy laying plans to bulldoze it, and they'd already put up their "DANGER: HAZARDOUS WASTE" signs when Leonard's independently analysed gravel samples came back clean. So the authorities backed off, which didn't hurt his burgeoning reputation as a folk hero. Salvation Mountain's Web site invites one and all to "The Slabs" and hundreds have heeded the call. Some settle permanently in their camper vans, others are "Snowbirds", dropping by on their way south with the sun."

[WorkingClassFilth]

Well, in that case, it's an even better use of government land.

We could do a lot to solve our budget woes if governnment, at all levels, divested most of it's vast land holdings and sold them back to citizens for better neutral uses or productive economic development.

[Daffynition]

To play devil’s advocate, I wouldn’t exactly call this “neutral use.” ;)

[martin_fierro]

"I paint mountains, but this guy PAINTS MOUNTAINS!"

[Daffynition]

Hot air, I say.

[catfish1957]

I collect art, and I think that Bob Ross is overated. Still, you can occasionaly find his works on ebay (with proper provenance) for $3-5K

[warsaw44]

I’d agree. Bless his heart but a Ross painting makes me wince.

I do enjoy the works of self taught artists though.

[catfish1957]

"I do enjoy the works of self taught artists though.

Maybe I was a little tough on Bob Ross. I will admit, that his ability to make a decent painting in 30 minutes is pretty amazing. But for inspiration and awe, give me a large spectacular Bierstadt any day.