Jon and I were talking about his recent Watts Towers post. It is a pretty amazing site. We discussed the difficulty of getting a good shot of it . Due to fencing around the base, it is difficult to get a good view of it.
I visited there a couple of years ago and got this shot.
An aside: A friend of mine (Bill Hale) who was in graduate school at USC, made a documentary of Simon Rodilla for his MA thesis. He got to know Simon well and shortly after Simon finished the Towers, he moved from Watts to San Francisco to be with a daughter. He wanted to give Bill the Towers, but Bill didn"t want the responsibility so he directed Simon to an Agency that took them over. Simon was said to be a humble and dedicated guy. He built the towers on his own time with his own money. Bill Hale became a TV director; his Documentary plays every once in a while on KPBS. L. Nidorf
ReplyDeleteThanks, Louis… great story. Jon had done some research on the history of the Towers and had lots of interesting info. They were almost destroyed by the City some years ago. Fortunately, they were saved. I think that they must be considered a great example of folk art.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty good. They are tough to shoot. I have seen the documentary, it gave me the impression they were larger than they are. The smaller scale in reality is quite nice.
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