Salvation Mountain

Posted by Queuebot in Religion, Travel & Places on July 13, 2009 at 6:35 pm


After several failed attempts to spread the Word of God through various grand schemes, Leonard Knight finally settled on building Salvation Mountain in the middle of the desert from discarded trash, sand and adobe. He painted it with inspirational quotes from the bible to help protect it from the weather.

Leonard decided to leave California but wanted to spend one extra week in the area to make a small memorial with a half bag of concrete he had lying around. Weeks begat months begat years and after tons of junk, sand, concrete and paint were assembled, Leonard had the 50-foot high creation he was after! Until it collapsed on itself.

Undaunted, Leonard rebuilt the mountain, this time using native adobe clay and straw. He applied paint liberally to keep the elements from washing away his work. Over the years, Leonard has applied well over 100,000 gallons of paint to his mountain of clay and debris as (he hopes) a lasting tribute to God.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by tzkelley.


Previous post
this post? Please Email this               
Next post

Tags: ,


FUN PRODUCTS FROM THE NEATORAMA SHOP:
BuckyBalls (w/ Mystery Bonus!)


COMMENT

11 comments to "Salvation Mountain"

  1. Gauldar
    July 13th, 2009 at 6:53 pm

    Pile of Babel?

  2. M. Dora
    July 13th, 2009 at 6:57 pm

    Just got back from a trip out to the Twentynine Palms area, and took a side trip down along the Salton Sea, out past the town of Niland, to Leonard's, and was fortunate to be in the company of an art professor, who assisted me in understanding some of what we encountered there.

    The place is stupefying.

    Pictures do not do it justice. Not at all.

    Fantastic primitive art.

    Leonard is happy to talk with all comers.

    How this old man keeps at it, out in the blistering desert is beyond my puny abilities to understand.

    If you ever find yourself within five hundred miles of this place, stop, rearrange your schedule, and by all means go. Go and see this thing!

  3. Joseph Francis
    July 14th, 2009 at 12:44 am

    I'll be in San Diego for the ComicCon. Will check it out.

    http://bit.ly/5pW47

  4. Johnny Cat
    July 14th, 2009 at 1:19 am

    I'm so going there. I wonder if Leonard would let me arrive by parachute.

  5. Video Game Dork
    July 14th, 2009 at 6:42 am

    " He painted it with inspirational quotes from the bible to help protect it from the weather. "

    I didn't know bible quotes workes as weatherproofing! Thats much more affordable than normal means.

  6. Timm
    July 14th, 2009 at 8:01 am

    I worked out in the desert about 2 miles from this place.

    I always thought it was little more than a trash heap when the shanty village of "slab city" (not too far away from here) is added to the picture.

    I think Google Earth has a lot more pics.

  7. Pudd
    July 14th, 2009 at 11:30 am

    Leonard Knight and Salvation Mountain are some of the builders and monuments shown in the awesome documentary- God's Architects by Zach Godshall.

    Clip of Leonard on Vimeo

  8. Xinavera
    July 14th, 2009 at 1:10 pm

    Whatever keeps him occupied. It's better than knocking on doors and handing out bibles, I guess.

  9. jenjen
    July 14th, 2009 at 3:33 pm

    It's definitely worth a trip. Leonard is obviously completely devoted to his work, but he's also quite pleased with the attention he's gotten lately, especially since being featured in "Into the Wild." He's quite happy to have his picture taken with you. Donations are welcome of course - he buys a lot of paint!

  10. Scooter
    July 15th, 2009 at 4:44 pm

    The builder was on KCPT's own "Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations" Great show for all you guys who have never seen it.

  11. Joseph Francis
    July 29th, 2009 at 12:08 am

    San Diego Comic-Con was sold out, but we went to Salvation Mountain anyway. Spent some time with Leonard. Climbed up and down and inside and out of the mountain. We gave him some paint and he gave us a DVD. We took a bunch of photos. I'll probably put them up on flickr, and add to the many photos of Leonard and his work that already exist on the internet.

    We'd like to go back again before too much longer, and bring our daughter, who was away visiting her grandmother this past time around.


PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT

Neatorama Comment Policy
You don't have to register or login to comment, but it's easier if you do so. Comments aren't censored, but those that are abusive or off-topic may be edited or deleted.


Stay updated on the comments with Comment RSS