Between Here and There: Exploring hwy 111

Photography and writing by Natasha Petrosova 



As we left Salb city we were on our way back home travelling down 111 hwy.  we spotted a few abandoned buildings and stopped to investigate them .  There were  few buildings still in Niland completely destroyed.  

Those buildings we saw as soon as we left Slab city

There other building was father traveling hwy 111.   It seems that is was a nice house.  There was still a sign "private property"  and I wonder who it belongs to.  

 Front Patio 

 Inside a house

Kitchen

 bedroom with a vew

 Bath tab

A desolate warehouse about four miles from Niland, California, along Highway 

111, this creepy looking structure invites only the most adventurous travelers to 

drive up and visit. I was one of them.

    Side entrance of the huge, deserted warehouse building. One could get lost exploring all of its rooms.

   Long ago forsaken, the structure still gets frequent visitors, as its graffiti-covered, cinder block walls confirm. The absence of trash, and other refuse, suggests that visitors don't stay here long; they just stop to investigate, leaving their personal marks and messages. Some of the highly decorated rooms give this forgotten warehouse new life and meaning. It now stands as a rest stop for Slab City-bound drifters, and a remote graffiti art gallery of sorts, its concrete walls a canvas for spray cans.

                  The building’s front entrance. Yes, it is near Niland. 

 An underlying theme of the many drifters passing through on their way to Slab City might be Finding myself / Losing myself. Slab City, the "trailer park utopia" that invites those who seek freedom from the American governmental/social structures, sits only eight miles away. Some migrate there to be lost, while others claim they have been found.

  Abundant with graffiti, this wall demands special attention. It looks as if the graffiti artists are engaged in a new form of competition, by drawing on top of each other's work. A representative of the Cat Cult, a Los Angeles-based graffiti art collective, created the pink creature. Cat Cult was recently featured in Juxtapoz, a magazine that celebrates urban alternative and underground contemporary art forms. Black writing by the cutout in the wall (window?) memorializes D. Armstrong. This artistic environment brings California painter, Duane Armstrong to mind. Armstrong is famous for placing a ladybug in the corner of almost all of his landscape paintings. That D. Armstrong is still alive though.   Robert Walker, the artist behind RW2 Gallery, seems to have found a new way to advertise, by way of this graffiti wall. Google him to see his intriguing oil paintings. He and his partner, Rowland "Eddie" Cook, travel the country in a Winnebago, selling at festivals and art shows, and painting along the way. In January 2012, Tobert and Eddie came to Slab City, and on their way either in or out, stopped here, to add this colorful moniker.The PBK graffiti crew may have created the blue and yellow PAIN graffiti below. 

This is another piece I believe PBK created, accompanied by a paraphrased version

 from Proverbs 12:15: The way of the fool is right in his own eyes.

 The building stands in close proximity to Slab City,   also known as The Last Free

Place in America. Consequently, writings concerning freedom are inevitable here. 

 

REPEAT AFTER ME: I AM FREE. In the United States of America, land of the free, so many still long for freedom, and travel many miles to find it here. It is not enough to be free if you do not feel free.

Under the word SIN it reads, Secret Empire Wuz Here. What secret empire?!? I suppose if I knew, the empire would no longer be a secret. I’ll just have to keep on guessing

I didn’t expect to find Russian writing in this remote wasteland, but this,without a doubt, is Russian. My guess, judging from the mistakes I noticed, someone born in Russia, but raised in the United States, wrote this.The first word says Moscow; the second word, Red, uses the English letter N, instead of the proper Russian; the third word has no meaning.This writer clearly wanted to say something, but did not have a firm enough grasp on Russian Vocabulary. The last word says USSR. Who talks of (or misses) the USSR these days?

A giant bee colony, apparently the only long-term tenants here, occupied this final room. The room was absent of any writing and graffiti, for obvious reasons. Who would risk disturbing these hardworking insects? Not me.

  

     These bees don’t waste any time. Look at all the honey they’ve 

produced! As bees have a tendency to abandon their hives, moving

 from place to place, there’s no telling how long they will stay.

  

Art of East Jesus

Art of East Jesus

Bottle Wall and entrance to Sculpture Garden

Article and photography by Natasha Petrosova 

    There between the toxic waters of the Salton Sea and the active bombing range in the most

 remote area of Slab City sits East Jesus, a permanent artist community in the Colorado Desert

 that features sculptures and installations. The late Charles Russell, radical thinker and art car

 decorator, founded East Jesus in 2007 to create an inimitable establishment that would be both

 a livable space and an art installation decorated from the inside out.  

Financial difficulties prevented Russell from purchasing the land needed to create such a 

venue, so he took his project to Slab City, “The Last Free Place in America,” where he could 

build without permits, create without boundaries, and live on the land freely (and for free). But 

freedom comes at a price, as East Jesus is characterized by taxing summer weather, and lack of 

electricity, gas, water, and a sewer system. 

Despite those challenges, Russell and a small band of allies, created a comfortable living 

environment, inventing a shower and toilet, and generating electricity through solar panels. 

With a hint of sarcasm, Russell named his creation East Jesus, meaning a faraway, remote, and 

uninteresting place not worth visiting. Of all the labels one might stick on East Jesus, 

“uninteresting” does not come to mind.

After Russell’s sudden death last summer, his friends and supporters took over East Jesus, 

and his work. Frank Redford, a curator, calls himself an East Jesus “Bully,”  along with 

other dedicated artists, musicians, writers, and freethinkers, continue to create and expand 

within its walls.  

Today the installation at East Jesus consists of the main structure, the Art Garden, livable art

 cars and buses, a music room complete with a baby grand piano, a garden, a kitchen, and 

more.

 EJ artists mostly use trash and found/recycled material to assemble sculptures, installations, 

and habitable spaces. They nurture the idea of making something beautiful and useful from 

ugly, unwanted and discarded items, so East Jesus exists in a harmonious balance between a 

rejected land and installations made of rejected objects.

Over the years, East Jesus has become a unique place for artists to express themselves in 

unconventional, even radical ways.  It is a place to live and work away from traditional 

galleries, museums, and the institutionalized contemporary art world. The Art here does not 

require a critic’s approval, nor is it made with the intention to be sold, traded, and reviewed. 

Here art exists to be touched, rearranged, and lived in. Most EJ artists don’t have a traditional 

art education, nor is one required to live and create here. Some participants don’t even consider

 themselves artists in their daily lives, though they still produce art within 

the East Jesus borders.

This small community exemplifies the relational aesthetic, where people come together to 

participate in the shared activity of making art. The environment was created through art, and 

art is the daily activity that gives the community’s participants a sense of worth and belonging. 

Here, art shapes human relationships and provides an alternative social framework. 

Some of the Art Garden’s sculptures and installations, like “Tower Barbarella” and a 

“Bottle Wall” are collaborations. Others were created by individual artists, like Frank 

Redford’s “The Man’s Vices,” and Joes Holiday‘s “Mammoth.” Other works, such as the 

installation “TV Wall,” are meant to remain uncompleted works. Redford said that as long as 

there are more found TVs and computer monitors, the structure will continue to grow.  

Post Apocalypse and Survival are the underlying themes of East Jesus installations and the 

life style. The harsh environment and off-the-grid exile living, combined with sculptures and 

installations created from trash found, for the most part, in its own environment, offer viewers 

an unfamiliar, uncanny experience. It is a literal glimpse into an unfortunate future of what life 

would become following the very real threat of nuclear war or environmental disaster. This 

perspective forces the viewer into active engagement with an installation while experiencing a 

sense of community and alternative social interaction. 

The essence of survival is not only limited to East Jesus’ human occupants. The art itself, in

 the severe open desert heat, under the blistering sun, weathering thunderstorms and floods, 

must outlast this unrelenting environment. Survival and the post-apocalyptic future are both 

communicated in a multiplicity of themes, religious, political, and literal. Perhaps it is an 

expression of the uncertainty for East Jesus itself, both as a collective and individual effort. 

After all, the land upon which East Jesus stands does not legally belong to its inhabitants, so 

there is a sensible fear that federal officials might one day arrive on bulldozers and raze the art 

and habitat. Perhaps it is an encouraging message of rebuilding, hope, and new beginning.

 Found and communal art may not be new ideas in the contemporary art world, but what 

makes East Jesus unique is its treatment of a new genre, the roots of which can be found in the 

temporary establishment of Black Rock City, at the annual Burning Man Festival. 

Furthermore,  East Jesus revamps old ideas in a new and unpredictable way. It offers an 

innovative conceptual representation of unity and harmony between the object, environment, 

artist, and lifestyle.

Perceptual distance/distinction between artist, object, and viewer remains intangible, as it is 

merging and interchangeable, ultimately providing a unified, continuous experience for 

everyone involved. This kind of conceptual representation is difficult, perhaps impossible to 

realize in a traditional museum or gallery setting, but these are the very qualities that 

push East Jesus in fresh, unique, and imaginative directions.

The Ducks installation in Art Garden

Inside the Cinnabar Charm.  Art Car by Charles Russell.

Art Car in Art Garden

 TV Wall

A livable space inside a trailer

Man's Vices by Frank Redford

Another sculpture in the Art Garden

Mammoth by Joe Holliday

Buried House.  Installation by Ben Wolf and Heidi Tullmann 

The office

Celling decorated with vintage records

The area outside to sit , talk and relax

Another livable space inside the trailer decorated with T-shirts

Frank Redford, a curator of East Jesus, gives a tour to a visitor from Los Angels Lance Dutcher.   The installation Frank is pointing is "The Can Organ".  This installation is  known to make the  intriguing sound during the rain.

Bottles for the Bottle Wall.  

Frank Redford, a curator and a Bully of East Jesus.

The kitchen.  a clever way to get a gas stove work by connecting it to a propane tank.

Music room

A memorial installation dedicated to Charles Russell

Installation in progress

Installation in progress