I saw a picture that I found difficult to comprehend. Here it is:
It looks like someone has painted over rocks on a hillside. Or maybe it is a strange large cake in the Guinness Book of Records. My first guess is almost correct. This is known as Salvation Mountain. It is a human made mountain/hillside visionary environment created by Leonard Knight in the California desert near Slab City. The 'mountain' is made of adobe bricks, discarded tires and windows, automobile parts and more, and it is all painted with Christian sayings and Bible verses. Its philosophy was centred on the Sinner's Prayer.
This is a well-covered U.S. destination, so it is strange that I haven't found it before. And the person who created it has a curious and compelling life story. In the year 2000 the Folk Art Society of America declared it a folk art site worthy of preservation and protection. There is now a public charity to support the project.
This creation was Leonard Knight's life endeavour. Things started at 36 when he experienced a 'spiritual awakening' - this started his life of sharing the love of God. He wanted to create a hot air balloon as the vehicle to spread God's love. But it failed to fly and that was after more than 15 years of trying. Then he started the small monument in Niland, California with a shovel and a bag of cement This had failures, too but after 1989 it continued to grow into what is there today. Knight died in 2014, but a volunteer organization intensively works to maintain the site.
"Leonard Knight was one of those men who was so singular of vision that from a distance some would brush it off as crazy. But it didn’t take much to realize what Leonard was. Just a conversation and you would know — this man was a saint, an American sadhu in the desert of southern California. The mountain was his living daily meditation.The words he gifted to me in our time together transcended his specific faith and spoke to a universal love that is only understood by the most devout seekers in the world."
Both PBS and BBC have produced documentaries on the site and it was featured in the 2007 film "Into the Wild". More information is HERE.
Today's collage comes from billboard scenes in Toronto a few years ago. I thought the blue tones were wonderfully summer-like.
