WE STOOD AT the base of a sticky, bright mountain, a 50-foot-high altar of hay and clay and thousands of gallons of paint proclaiming “GOD IS LOVE” in chunky letters. We shaded our faces from the hazy-sizzling sky to see the white cross at the very top, blue stripes streaming down the sides, a parade of happy flowers at the base. “Say Jesus I’m a sinner please come upon my body and into my heart” is written into a giant cherry-red heart.
My friends and I were 19 years old and seeing Salvation Mountain, the folk-art stronghold, for the first time. We learned about Salvation Mountain the way most people do these days: through friends on Instagram. We drove three hours east from San Diego to Niland, a tiny census designated place in Southern California’s Imperial Valley, a desert landscape of sagebrush, sand, and brassy wind. Salvation Mountain’s artist, Leonard Knight, began building the mountain in 1984 and maintained it every day until his health began to fail in 2011. He died in 2014.
The prayer in the big red heart was what Knight prayed on the day he experienced a born-again moment and heard God call him to build a mountain proclaiming universal love to the world. When we visited, he’d been dead for a few years, and the mountain was getting cracked and worn, the paint tearing up in chunks. Knight built other structures next to the mountain, including a shaded “forest” of what he called “car tire trees”: stacks of tires for trunks and crisscrossed poles for branches, mixed with adobe and straw and painted bright colors. We quietly moved among them. “God is love” appeared again and again on the crevices and lumps, like a psalm. I felt it in my chest, that ache it takes to devote all of one’s creativity and being to God.
Knight didn’t ask permission to build his mountain on state-owned property, right next to concrete slabs that used to be a military training range. But that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a destination for artists, students, pilgrims, and tourists. Earlier this year, Salvation Mountain was designated a historically significant property and historic resource site in Imperial County, which will protect it from development that could cause “adverse change.” Since Knight’s death 10 years ago, a team of volunteers has maintained the mountain. Locals and supporters wonder how long the mountain will last without its creator.
Imperial County is one of the poorest counties in California. To the west of Salvation Mountain is the Salton Sea, the largest inland lake in the state and 50 percent saltier than the Pacific Ocean. The Salton Sea has become toxic and salty due to pesticide and agricultural runoff and algae blooms that eat up oxygen, which have also killed mass amounts of fish and other wildlife. Local communities near the Salton Sea suffer health conditions like asthma and headaches due to chemical-laden dust.
A few years ago, lithium-rich brine was discovered underneath the Salton Sea. The silvery-white metal is used in electronics like cell phones and laptops. The Salton Sea lithium trove is estimated to be enough to supply all the U.S. demand. Because lithium is necessary for electric vehicle batteries, supporters and investors emphasize the environmental benefits of extracting it. But lithium mining requires an immense amount of water, and residents are concerned about the impact on their community. The process would draw from the Colorado River, the water source for irrigation in this agricultural region.
To the east of Salvation Mountain, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operate a 458,267-acre bombing range in the cobbly Chocolate Mountains. There, near Niland, squads simulate combat and Navy teams train for land warfare.
“It is not uncommon to hear planes and helicopters and practice artillery combats echoing off the mountain walls and desert floors as one sits at Salvation Mountain,” wrote historian and theologian Sara M. Patterson in Middle of Nowhere. Her book, which explores Salvation Mountain, religion, and folk art, argues that the landscape — the Salton Sea and its environmental decay, the military industrial complex and governmental forms of control — influences Salvation Mountain’s impact as a piece of art and as a religious statement.
This bombing range, intentionally built in a perceived “middle of nowhere,” isn’t meant to be seen — or heard — by the public. But Knight’s Salvation Mountain draws thousands of visitors to the area every year.
“Everything is here,” Knight said in 2007. “The mountain clay is here, the adobe is here, the desert is here, there’s free rent in Slab City, so 24 years later I’m still here.”
Knight never attended church — the mountain was his worship space and community. “God loves the whole world, everybody in the world,” he would say. “Let’s not get confused.”
Patterson wrote that Knight felt Christians needed to be coaxed “back to what he believed true Christianity was — gratitude for God’s love.” Knight wanted the artwork’s message to linger more than anything. “A lot of people call it outsider art,” he said. “They talk about that, but if they didn’t talk about God almighty in there, I’d get sick.”
Salvation Mountain is labeled outsider art, or folk art, because it was created by someone who was not trained as an artist. Patterson wrote that the “category of outsider art is itself problematic. It is a category too broad to connect its occupants except by suggesting that they are not the ‘us’ of the art world. It is also a category that lumps together mental illness and religious passion, suggesting that the two are rooted in the same cause. ... The category creates class systems within the art world.”
Salvation Mountain has become, even after Knight’s death, a public space and a witness that colorfully proclaims that “God is love” on top of, and next to, legacies of military power and harm. I often feel the guilty tension of what it means to live and exist as a Christian in this country. The taxes I pay help fund wars and genocides abroad. The technology I use drives the extraction of resources in an already hurting landscape. Surrounded by empire, how does my life proclaim “GOD IS LOVE” in bright, breathing letters?
On another mountain — which some scholars think might be Mount Hermon, a peak that spans borders and whose snowmelt waters poplar and pine groves — Jesus’ transfiguration happened. His face dazzled like a desert sun; God called him “beloved.” The three disciples who were with Jesus on the mountain fell to the ground in awe and fear. Jesus reached out to them and said, “Get up and do not be afraid.”
Mountains are holy, lonely places where revelations and transformations of hearts happen. Standing on top of Salvation Mountain, beholding the landscape and Knight’s life work, I felt how necessary it is in this world to get up and follow God without fear.
“Jesus I love you for yesterday,” Knight said. “Hello God, I’m your friend.”
Cassidy Klein is a journalist, writer, and editor based in Chicago. Find her work at cassidyrklein.weebly.com.
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