Watts Towers #1
by Joseph Hollingsworth
Title
Watts Towers #1
Artist
Joseph Hollingsworth
Medium
Photograph - Digital
Description
The Watts Towers, Towers of Simon Rodia, or Nuestro Pueblo ("our town") are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptural structures within the Simon Rodia State Historic Park in the Watts community of Los Angeles. The tallest of the towers reaches a height of over 99 feet (30 m). The towers and walls were designed and built by Sabato ("Simon") Rodia (1879-1965), an Italian immigrant construction worker and tile mason, over a period of 33 years, from 1921 to 1954. The work is an example of outsider art and Italian-American naïve art.
The sculptures' armatures are constructed from steel rebar and his own concoction of a type of concrete, wrapped with wire mesh. The main supports are embedded with pieces of porcelain, tile, and glass. They are decorated with found objects, including bottles, ceramic tiles, sea shells, figurines, mirrors, and much, much more. Rodia called the Towers 'Nuestro Pueblo' (which means 'our town' in Spanish). He built them with no special equipment or predetermined design, working alone with hand tools. Neighborhood children brought pieces of broken pottery to Rodia, and he also used damaged pieces from the Malibu Pottery and CALCO (California Clay Products Company). Green glass includes recognizable soft drink bottles from the 1930s through 1950s, some still bearing the former logos of 7 Up, Squirt, Bubble Up, and Canada Dry; blue glass appears to be from milk of magnesia bottles.
Uploaded
March 23rd, 2016
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