 |
| click the photos to enlarge |
The first time I heard of Simon Rodia’s towers in Watts was from my friend and mentor, Niels Holms. Niels was a great admirer of Rodia, along with Gaudi and Hundertwasser - artist builders who thought outside of the box imposed by the Industrial Age obsession with rectangles and squares.
Rectilinear shapes generally require less effort, time and creativity to make than curved shapes; and they are easier to duplicate - a necessary feature of mass production. Our building system based on interchangeable parts: eight foot 2’’X4’’s and 4’X8’ sheets of plywood, and so we have impoverished our lives for the sake of greater efficiency.
Niels was one of those people who believed that box-shaped structures are unnatural. They imprison the inhabitants, and kill the soulfulness of the creative process. He believed that our buildings should imitate the shapes we find in nature - so that we can be at home in the natural world, rather than partitioned off from it.
Watts Towers Behind Bars
It saddens me to see the Towers behind bars, though I understand the need to protect the artwork from the inevitable vandalism of the dispossessed. Watts is infamous for Its dispossessed and the riots of 1965.
I understand the liabilities of careless climbers - the Towers look like a cross between a cathedral to an unknown god and an oversized jungle gym - perfectly proportioned for a climb to the heaven of your choice.
All the same, I can’t help feeling that the bars are meant to keep the Towers from escaping into the neighborhood. If there is any place that could use a more curvaceous architecture, it would be Watts, where mostly what you see are long rows of tiny box-like houses, unbroken by trees or shrubs.
Watts is one of the epicenters of a new kind of slavery that grips the land - a slavery so subtle that we never realize our own shackles, until one morning when we wake, and discover all of the straight lines separating us from the natural world, all of the possessions that chain us to exploitative jobs, the siren’s song of popular culture that lull us into a false sense of complacency and stifle our creative urges.
Restoration
Efforts to preserve Rodia's Towers are funded by a grant from LACMA - Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A great effort is made to respect the authenticity of the original art work - to recreate it as it was. To reproduce Rodia's concrete mix and the artifacts he used for his masterpiece.
The Towers have become Art History, and are no longer a living sculpture. I see a huge divergence between the images of Rodia climbing his structure with his bucket of concrete mix and pocket full of tools, and the pictures of modern workers in risk-reducing lifts.
Rodia worked without a safety net, unpaid, after work, without the strings of large grants, using materials that were cheap and readily at hand.
Our Lady of the Roses
Across the street from the Towers, behind more bars, is a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Buried in my darker memories of growing up Catholic are the May Day celebrations, with girls in their pretty dresses, the statue of Mary garlanded in tiny flowers, and the beautiful songs we sang in procession.
I had forgotten these springtime interludes of joy in what was otherwise a cult of death. In my struggles to free myself from the accumulated guilt, I had purged myself of the sweeter experiences of what I loved most.
Concert at the Watts Towers
Kia looks more like she’s twelve than twenty in this photo. She’s family, but not blood. Her music never ceases to amaze me, her sound is as unique as the Towers themselves.
 |
| A neighbor becomes a fan |
She breaks out her banjo, lets loose her voice, so large for such a small person. Her music gives people from different parts of the world permission to talk to each other, to take each other’s pictures.
Two different people tell me that they’ve lived nearby all their lives, and never heard of the Towers until friends came to visit from far away. A neighbor comes out to listen to the music. Simon’ Rodia’s Spires become broadcast towers, beaming Kia’s music to a distant planet, a different time where straight lines are an anomaly and bars are unnecessary
Kia's music: http://soundcloud.com/thistlebreath
