Along dusty Highway one-eleven in Niland, California, the Buckshot Deli and Diner is
the place to get a strong cup of coffee, and directions to the area’s most famous landmark.
Go two blocks to the south and turn left and go straight.
That’s just how it is, you just know the people who want to go to Salvation Mountain.
And probably sometimes you’ll get a hundred a day that just want to go do Salvation Mountain.
The draw of Salvation Mountain is not surprising.
After all, how often does one see a candy-colored mountain, three stories high, in the middle
of the desert.
Hello.
My name is Leonard Knight and I made this mountain twenty-two years here and I’d like
to give you a tour of it.
Filmmakers and photographers have helped spread the word about Salvation Mountain, and Leonard
Knight, the self-taught artist who spent years building his monument to God’s love.
Knight lived at the mountain in the back of a pickup truck.
For years, he would greet visitors and give daily tours.
Everybody is more than welcome to straggle up here if you want.
This past December, Leonard Knight moved to a nursing home in San Diego County.
He’s eighty years old.
Without Knight living and working onsite, Salvation Mountain’s future is now uncertain.
Well the paint, obviously.
San Diegan Dan Westfall and a group of concerned locals have formed a non-profit board to preserve
and protect the mountain.
Number one is security.
This is not a really stable secure neighborhood.
There are elements around here that don’t respect Leonard’s art, that don’t respect
much of anything.
Just down the road from Salvation Mountain is Slab City, what is sometimes referred to
as The Last Free Place in America.
People live off the grid here, some squatting year round on state-owned land, and others,
snowbirds, setting up camp during the mild winter months.
We have four members of the board are from Slab City.
They are in ten-minute drive, fifteen-, twenty-minute walk of the mountain so if there’s an issue,
there’s someone on site.
They’ve been a great saving grace here for us.
Of course, you know it’s kind of looked at as a place where a lot of criminals, outlaws,
hippies and no-goods live.
This is Cuervo and these are his mules, Rock n Roll and Cocky Walker.
Cuervo lives in a tent in Slab City.
He says a lot of people there want to see Salvation Mountain preserved.
Oh well I mean I think it’s beautiful and I like the way he built it.
I’m not uh real fond of the Jesus stuff and all that, I’m not a real religious guys
and all that, especially the Christian Jesus part and all that.
Of course love is nice.
I recognize that.
Complicating matters is the question of ownership.
The state is not sure they own the land under Salvation Mountain.
They say, right now, they don’t have the resources to find out if they do.
Meanwhile, the new board is looking for a caretaker to live at the mountain.
You know Leonard was here working on it twenty-four-seven and that’s kind of what needs to happen.
Jo Farb Hernandez is the director of SPACES, an organization that helps preserve work by
outsider artists.
She says the caretaker will have to do more than protect the mountain.
They’ll need to patch the adobe and paint on a daily basis.
Somebody needs to be here on site, somebody that knows what they’re doing, to do conservation
work on it as needed because otherwise it will be impossible to save.
People are climbing all over it.
And there are cracks all over it.
And somebody’s boot heel catches in it and you know a chunk comes out and then the rain
gets in and you know the sun peels back the paint and pretty soon you’ve got a much
larger chunk that’s out.
Salvation Mountain was Leonard Knight’s passion and his life work.
Transferring that kind of passion to someone else, who will volunteer to live and work
there for a small stipend, is a challenge.
I can’t imagine the amount of labor that Leonard put into this in the last twenty-seven
years.
That passion’s going to take a unique individual that’s going to value this enough to say
this is worth doing.
It’s probably one of the more problematic sites in the country certainly if not the
world, but I personally think that this is one of the top tier of art environments in
the country if not the world on a lot of different levels.
I think aesthetically, conceptually, and spiritually, certainly.
Over the years, Leonard Knight has been approached by religious groups who wanted to include
their message on the mountain.
He always refused, choosing one simple mission - to let people know that his God is a God
of love.
I want Leonard’s legacy to live on.
You know, Leonard always said “keep it simple” and it can’t be any more simple than people
coming and helping and making the mountain grow and stay for future generations.
I want my grandkids to bring their kids here.