Showing posts with label Watts Towers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Watts Towers. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Suki's Poem


On Being an Artist

The rose window fractured
by a fierce wind
shards on the grass
till he came along
collected the fragments
crafted a kaleidoscope

Fractured
by the tornado of life
for two years I lay on the rug
my thoughts scattered
Now I must turn my mind around
create beauty from the ruins

Suki from her Blog

**The Watts Towers were created by Italian immigrant Simon Rodia between 1922 and 1955.  A construction worker, he created it from bits of ceramic plates, discarded construction materials, anything he found.  He did not consider himself an artist, and when, at the age of 75 he left Los Angeles, he deeded the lot the Towers were on to his neighbor. 
"The Watts Towers survived. A thriving community art center now sits beside them and Simon Rodia’s namesake jazz festival just celebrated its thirty-third anniversary. It’s as if Rodia, who approached his magnum opus like it was a private madness, had the greater good in mind all the time."

Catherine Wagley, DVisible Magazine