Vermont's Independent Voice
Browse News
Browse Arts + Culture
Browse Food + Drink
Browse Cannabis
Browse Music
Browse On Screen
Browse Events
Browse Classifieds
Browse Personals
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Art Not a Mirage: Vermonter Finds 'Salvation' in the California Desert
Posted
By Paula Routly
on Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 9:00 AM
No American landscape looks less like Vermont’s than the parched desert that runs along the dying Salton Sea in southern California — which is precisely what drew me to vacation there last week. But a folk-art oasis in that no man’s land rightfully belongs to the Green Mountain State.
Near the dusty town of Nilan, Vermont-born Leonard Knight spent three decades building a monument to God called Salvation Mountain. A vision of obsessive devotion topped with a cross, it marks the entrance to a squatters’ paradise called Slab City, aka The Slabs, that was featured in the 2007 movie Into the Wild. Knight and his mountain were also in the film.
Knight died last year, at 82. But his life’s work still rises out of the state-owned desert — a dazzling sculpture constructed of adobe, straw and lots of paint. Visitors can ascend the multicolored mountain on a yellow-brick road past whimsical representations of nature and quotes from the Bible, including the big one: “God is Love.”
In 2000, the Folk Art Society of America declared it a “folk art site worthy of preservation and protection.” In an address to the U.S. Congress two years later, California Sen. Barbara Boxer called Salvation Mountain a “national treasure … profoundly strange and beautifully accessible, and worthy of the international acclaim it receives.”
A staff-written obituary last February in the L.A. Times said Knight was “a welder, handyman, guitar teacher, painter and body-and-fender man” before he arrived in Slab City in the early 1980s with his truck, an old tractor and a hot-air balloon that he had once thought would be his conveyance for a cross-country float.” He spent decades living alone — among stray cats — in a truck at the base of his mountain. Plenty more of those converted vehicles remain.
All Knight ever asked for was paint.
Knight did get some publicity over the years. In addition to the movie part and Boxer tribute, he was the subject of a documentary and in a cover shot on a book titled Self-Made Worlds: Visionary Folk Art Environments.
“He never sought to proselytize. He greeted visitors cheerfully,” Tony Perry wrote in the Times obituary. He quoted Knight from an earlier encounter: “If somebody gave me $100,000 a week to move somewhere and live in a mansion and be a big shot, I’d refuse it,” he said. “I want to be right here. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
Last week, in the blazing California sun, I couldn’t have agreed more.
Near the dusty town of Nilan, Vermont-born Leonard Knight spent three decades building a monument to God called Salvation Mountain. A vision of obsessive devotion topped with a cross, it marks the entrance to a squatters’ paradise called Slab City, aka The Slabs, that was featured in the 2007 movie Into the Wild. Knight and his mountain were also in the film.
Knight died last year, at 82. But his life’s work still rises out of the state-owned desert — a dazzling sculpture constructed of adobe, straw and lots of paint. Visitors can ascend the multicolored mountain on a yellow-brick road past whimsical representations of nature and quotes from the Bible, including the big one: “God is Love.”
In 2000, the Folk Art Society of America declared it a “folk art site worthy of preservation and protection.” In an address to the U.S. Congress two years later, California Sen. Barbara Boxer called Salvation Mountain a “national treasure … profoundly strange and beautifully accessible, and worthy of the international acclaim it receives.”
In the same speech, Boxer described Knight as “a one-time snow shoveler from Vermont.” The official Salvation Mountain website, which doesn’t appear to acknowledge his death, notes he was born on November 1, 1931, just outside of Burlington in “Shelburne Falls” — the fourth of six kids.
A staff-written obituary last February in the L.A. Times said Knight was “a welder, handyman, guitar teacher, painter and body-and-fender man” before he arrived in Slab City in the early 1980s with his truck, an old tractor and a hot-air balloon that he had once thought would be his conveyance for a cross-country float.” He spent decades living alone — among stray cats — in a truck at the base of his mountain. Plenty more of those converted vehicles remain.
All Knight ever asked for was paint.
Knight did get some publicity over the years. In addition to the movie part and Boxer tribute, he was the subject of a documentary and in a cover shot on a book titled Self-Made Worlds: Visionary Folk Art Environments.
“He never sought to proselytize. He greeted visitors cheerfully,” Tony Perry wrote in the Times obituary. He quoted Knight from an earlier encounter: “If somebody gave me $100,000 a week to move somewhere and live in a mansion and be a big shot, I’d refuse it,” he said. “I want to be right here. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
Last week, in the blazing California sun, I couldn’t have agreed more.
Comments
Comments are closed.
Since 2014, Seven Days has allowed readers to comment on all stories posted on our website. While we’ve appreciated the suggestions and insights, the time has come to shut them down — at least temporarily.
While we champion free speech, facts are a matter of life and death during the coronavirus pandemic, and right now Seven Days is prioritizing the production of responsible journalism over moderating online debates between readers.
To criticize, correct or praise our reporting, please send us a letter to the editor. Or send us a tip. We’ll check it out and report the results.
Online comments may return when we have better tech tools for managing them. Thanks for reading.
About The Author
Paula Routly
Bio:
Paula Routly came to Vermont to attend Middlebury College. After graduation, she stayed and worked as a dance critic, arts writer, news reporter and editor before she started Seven Days newspaper with Pamela Polston in 1995. Routly covered arts news, then food, and, starting in 2008, focused her editorial energies on building the news side of the operation, for which she is a regular weekly editor. She conceptualized and managed the “Give and Take” special report on Vermont’s nonprofit sector, the “Our Towns” special issue and the yearlong “Hooked” series exploring Vermont’s opioid crisis. When she’s not editing stories, Routly runs the business side of Seven Days — overseeing finances, management and product development. She spearheaded the creation of the newspaper’s numerous ancillary publications and events such as Restaurant Week and the Vermont Tech Jam. In 2015, she was inducted into the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame.
Paula Routly came to Vermont to attend Middlebury College. After graduation, she stayed and worked as a dance critic, arts writer, news reporter and editor before she started Seven Days newspaper with Pamela Polston in 1995. Routly covered arts news, then food, and, starting in 2008, focused her editorial energies on building the news side of the operation, for which she is a regular weekly editor. She conceptualized and managed the “Give and Take” special report on Vermont’s nonprofit sector, the “Our Towns” special issue and the yearlong “Hooked” series exploring Vermont’s opioid crisis. When she’s not editing stories, Routly runs the business side of Seven Days — overseeing finances, management and product development. She spearheaded the creation of the newspaper’s numerous ancillary publications and events such as Restaurant Week and the Vermont Tech Jam. In 2015, she was inducted into the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame.
