{"id":6118,"date":"2019-11-14T04:35:08","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T04:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=6118"},"modified":"2019-11-14T04:35:31","modified_gmt":"2019-11-14T04:35:31","slug":"love-los-angeles-style-and-the-watts-towers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=6118","title":{"rendered":"Love, Los-Angeles Style And The Watts Towers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Love, Los-Angeles Style<\/h1>\n
by Tash Moore<\/pre>\n
One may step off the train and see the sort of platform that must have greeted generation upon generation. Unassuming, wooden, well-kept overall, but certainly urban and with barred windows. Once upon a time, young people of color and blacks alike may have crowded the platform waiting for the Metropolitan Transit Authority rail line to pick them up and transport them downtown. Transistor radios may have carried competing notes as people from all sorts of backgrounds listened to Motown and other delightful sounds. Dressed in their everyday best, sweaters or dresses neatly pressed, they lived day in and day out throughout the 1960s. And just down the long, bending way was the ever-present Towers, a sight for sore eyes when they returned in the evenings from work or school. So-called strife and uprisings aside, these Towers never fell completely down.<\/span><\/p>\n
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photo: Tash Moore<\/p><\/div>\n
While the train station house has grown old with its neighbors, the Towers are undergoing an extensive restoration set to take workers into 2020. Partnered with institutions like LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and with funding from the LA Department of Cultural Affairs, the work is meticulous and varied.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Originally designed and almost-compulsively built over a period of decades, the Watts Towers were the brain-child of an Italian immigrant, Sabato “Simon” Rodia. He crafted loose ends and found objects into a soaring, multi-tiered structure beginning in the 1920s, then mysteriously abandoned all work on the project about thirty years later though he never stopped talking excitedly about it to anyone who would listen. The restoration is an involved undertaking, with bits and pieces often falling from everywhere you can imagine. A tile here, a rock there. One can imagine trying to sort and reattach a tiny bit of the material as being akin to locating tiny bits in a giant fresco. Except instead of being on a flat wall, this structure is rounded in some places, pointed in others, and somewhat unwieldy. The staff thankfully has the guidance of an archive of photos taken throughout the 1980s to place or replace the found parts. Stabilizing and repairs can take hours per section.<\/span><\/p>\n