Power Towers

In an interview last year Austin talked about places around LA he likes to go, some of the restaurants and other just places around LA. One such place is Watts Towers in the Watts section of the city. Austin talks about going to The Watts Towers to lay in the grass and reading.

Watts began as ethnically diverse working neighborhood many of them who worked on the railroad, it named after the first railroad station, Watts Station, that was built in the town.

It was during that time that a gentleman Simon Rodia took something very ordinary and made it extraordinary. The Watts Towers have become a the most famous landmark in Watts..

The towers, consist of nine major sculptures, intricate towers and surrounding wall were built on a small triangular site at 1765 107th Street East in Watts, on one-tenth of an acre (400 square meters) edging the Pacific Electric Railway Red Car tracks where Rodia settled sometime between 1921 and 1925.

The exact date of Rodia's initiation of his monumental endeavor is unknown. What is clear is that starting in his early forties, he worked on them for the next thirty-plus years, every day, creating a masterpiece that has become the poster image for the environmental art genre.

The tallest of the towers stands 99.5 feet high and contains the longest slender reinforced concrete column in the world. The main vertical legs of the sculptures are slender columns containing internal steel reinforcements, tied with wire and wrapped with wire mesh.

Embedded in the mortar of the towers are the remnants of all sorts of popular household items of the times - from ceramic tiles to mirrors to the brilliant blue and green broken glass of old 7-Up and Milk of Magnesia bottles.

There is no strict school of art to describe, the Towers are more about a individuality, expression, innovation and vision. The celebrate the perseverance and steadfast determination of achieving what you dream.

To many it is just ordinary things even junk, but together makes something greater. It is seeing things in new ways. Everything can be art, art is everywhere.

This describes Austin doesn't? Do you think he is more artist or actor?

The Watts Towers Virtual Tour
The Watts Towers Pictures