The Cadwac Finds a New Home

My art car, the Cadwac now has a new owner. It is going to have a new life, too. Plans are in the works to do a major visual remodel of the car. Although it doesn't belong to me anymore, I will still be involved in helping with the remodel. Any metal work needed will be done at my shop. The new owner intends it to be used as a mutant vehicle at Burning Man next year as well as appearing in various parades and such.
It will have a whole new look - a darker, more steampunk look, with the addition of fire cannons and other effects, it should be pretty damn cool! We will add air springs to it and a trailer hitch as well as some special fog and lightng effects.
I am glad to see new energy and enthusiasm put into it. I will post updates on its transformation here in this blog.

One other thing, I fixed the link in my previous post so that you will actually get to see more photos of Charmingdale. Sorry I got it wrong the first time.

A Move to Charmingdale

It's been awhile since I posted to this blog mostly because we have moved off-grid. In August we packed it all up and moved to a remote mountain location forty miles from the nearest town. We have to create our own power, pump our own water, and climb a ladder to make a cellphone call. We do have satellite internet though. After a bit of fussing we got it going at the end of September.

Charmingdale is what we call it. The name comes from one of the first post offices in the area. The residents at the time wanted to call it Charmingdale and they set up a post office and created a town - kind of. Not really a town, just a small collection of ranches out in the wild. The post office only existed for about a year and that was the end of that. I think this all happened about 1880.

We got here as a result of answering an advertisement in the Caretaker's Gazette. They were looking for managers for a remote biological field station. The site used to be a ranger station until the colleges got a hold of it. They got three hundred applications for the job but we were the lucky ones and got the position. Our job is to maintain the 8 acres of buildings, fences, and fields.

Our adventure in this Zone has begun and there will be many future reports on what goes on out here. As of now, we just had our first freezes as winter approaches. We have picked the pears from our orchard and are getting things battened down for the cold part of the year. It is a beautiful time of year in a beautiful place. We are keeping the location secret for now just for the fun of it.

More photos here

Phonehenge West Update

There is a nation whose government can take land that you own at any time and put you in jail for creative home building. What country is this?  It's the United States of America. If you think you own your house or your land, think again.

OK, so I am a little over the top to claim that he is being prosecuted for creative home building. It's actually building code violations he is in trouble for. There are 9 counts, but I don't know the specifics. I think one of the violations is building too close to the property line but at least some of them are related to not getting permits to build some of the structures. But, still, isn't putting the guy in jail a bit excessive? Especially for the area that he lives in. It is very rural, sparsely populated, and decidedly not upscale. Not to mention that he has been building this place for 30 years! And, only now, they come for him?

As of this date, I think the place is still standing but Kim Fahey and his wife, who built the place, have been forced to move out. They have removed most of their personal belongings. He spent a short time in jail awaiting sentencing but was released on bail. Now his sentencing date has been postponed until some time in early August because he had to be hospitalized for kidney stones. I am guessing that it's too late to save the place unless some big names and big money step in immediately. Even then, maybe not.

In June, a group of us went out to Phonehenge West to see it, take pictures, and get a feel for what is going on there. If you have read my previous post about Phonehenge West, you already know some of the background on this assault on private property rights. For those who never got to see Phonehenge, See my photos here.

Save Phonehenge West from Destruction

 For the last 30 years Kim Fahey has been building an impressive live-in art installation in the mountain/desert of Southern California. Now it is threatened with destruction due to building code violations. Not only that, it's creator faces possible prison time for building art! That's crazy. Sentencing is July 8, 2011, so there is very little time to mount a massive public outcry to stop this travesty.
This is a major artwork and needs to be saved, in my opinion. It is also an example of  government's out-of control-intrusion into people's lives. Read this LA Times article about the latest trial and then go to the Save Phonehenge West Facebook page to stay informed and/or make a donation to fund the efforts to save it.. This isn't just about art. It's about government's increasing erosion of private property rights and creative expression.
I hope to visit Phonehenge West in a couple of weeks to show support and take some photos and video of it. If we can't save it from the wrecking ball, at least we can document it's creative grandeur before the denizens of mediocrity destroy it..
 It's not impossible to save artwork from the government. In Chandigarh, India, a major sculpture garden by Nek Chand was threatened by the Indian government. Because of public outcry, the government backed down and actually ending up making it a park and funding it's maintenance. In California, the location of Phonehenge West,  the Watts Towers were threatened by the government and then, because of public involvement, it was saved and is now a government funded park.
The government exists to serve the people. Not the other way around. Please share this with everyone you know.

Rest In Peace Charlie Russell

Charlie Russell, aka Chasterus, died sometime in the night between Tuesday, May 10 and Wednesday, May 11. It was natural causes of some kind but we don't know yet exactly what happened. He was a well-known art car artist and the founder and mayor of East Jesus. For anyone who doesn’t know, East Jesus is a habitable, extensible, experimental art environment-in-progress that has been Charlie’s home since December of 2006. His website is currently still online but I don't know for how much longer since no one but he had the password.

Charlie wasn’t feeling well the weekend before his death. He had stomach and lower back pain. A friend took him to the hospital Monday morning. I don’t know what all they did but they ended up prescribing antibiotics and an antispasmodic and sent him home. A trusted friend stayed with him through Tuesday and, in the evening, Charlie said he was feeling a little better. The friend went home. At 7 AM the next morning (Wednesday) he cam back to check on Charlie and found him sitting where he left him - apparently a peaceful death.

Most of the time, when someone dies in Slab City, their camps are disassembled within weeks by the locals who take what they can use and sell the rest for scrap. We did not want this to happen to East Jesus. Almost immediately word was spread about what happened. Jon Alloway, the producer and director of an upcoming movie, “Into the Zone”, was instrumental in contacting those close to Charlie. Close friends, Greg Hill, Flip Cassidy and Joe Holliday arrived the very same night to protect East Jesus from looters. More friends arrived over the next few days, including myself, until over a dozen supporters were present to decide how to preserve East Jesus. It was a good weekend. Not a happy weekend, but good. If only Charlie could have seen the love shown for him and his creation.

At this time East Jesus is being maintained and even expanded. Friends have been erecting a perimeter fence around the compound and another, higher, fence around the containers and living space. The site is occupied 24/7 so that nothing gets damaged or stolen. Keeping it going through this summer will be the biggest challenge since it is brutally hot, especially in August and September. 

Charlie will be missed by many, many people. He was a renaissance man. His expertise covered so much ground. His singing was amazing. He had technical knowledge about so many things. He was way into ham radio and other electronics stuff. He had a refined sense of design when he created art. He had strong, well thought out, opinions about most things. He had a great sense of humor. To his friends, he was kind and generous and he had almost zero tolerance for mean or dishonest people. He followed his own path with little regard for convention or social norms. I loved and respected Charlie and will miss him greatly.

A memorial celebration is being held on June 5^th at NIMBY in Oakland, CA. I can't make it for this but I created a short video to be played at the event. There is a collaboratively created sculpture area in East Jesus that serves as a memorial to Charlie. We started it the weekend after he died. If you knew him, you are invited to add to it. 

To stay informed about East Jesus, or help it continue, you can view the East Jesus Facebook page.

Mega Art Jam Report

Craziness in the desert! We arrived Friday morning in East Jesus for the Mega Art Jam and East Jesus Build Party. There were over 20 people present and creativity was the order of the weekend. I worked a little on the Tower and Nita and I both started cutting fabric to make flags to string along the guy wires for the tower.
Our friend Blaze came down from Northern California and created a sculpture in the garden. He also did some needed maintenance work including leveling the library trailer, one of the latest additions to the East Jesus compound.

Rabbit worked on his camp, cleaning up and bringing in more building materials. Joe added another room onto Xanadon't - his growing art structure. Some of the Gypsy Camp folks were playing music, and it was a damn good time. The weather was perfect. See my photos You should also check out, if you can, this batch of photos by Flip - Really great shots. AND... I made an extremely short video. Short because I didn't shoot much footage. It's too bad I didn't capture some of the amazing musicians on video.

Mega Art Jam in East Jesus

 This Thanksgiving weekend there will be a MEGA ART JAM in East Jesus. All kinds of artistic possibilities and projects will be explored, added to, started, finished, and embellished. From Friday November 26 to Sunday November 28 there will be an art creation extravaganza in the tiny suburb of Slab City, East Jesus, population: one.

Come out and make art out of junk, camp in the desert, and have a good time. This is desert camping. Bring your own everything. Don't leave a mess. Don't piss off the mayor!
More info about the event on the East Jesus Build Party Facebook page If you want to come to the event, be sure to R.S.V.P. on the Facebook page.

There are other fun things to see in the vicinity, too. The big attraction is Salvation Mountain. This is an art/religious monument created by Leonard Knight. There are also some gigantic, wildly painted concrete tanks. There are lots of art cars, too. For those interested in a natural anomaly, there are mud volcanoes only a couple of miles away at the edge of the Salton Sea. The Sea, itself, is pretty strange, not to mention the active bombing range right next to East Jesus. What a krazeee place!