slab city, california

I had no idea this even existed. 

Slab City or The Slabs is a snow­bird camp­site in the Sono­ran Desert 156 miles north­east of San Diego (east of Salton Sea) used by RV own­ers and squat­ters from across North America. 

It takes its name from the con­crete slabs that re­main from World War II Ma­rine bar­racks that were aban­doned in the 1950s. 

The site is both de­com­mis­sioned and un­con­trolled and has no elec­tric­i­ty, no run­ning wa­ter, no sew­ers, toi­lets, or trash pick­up service. 

My daugh­ter Stephanie Hart want­ed to pho­to­graph di­lap­i­dat­ed build­ings at Salton Sea and came across the place. 

Paint­ed bunkers an­nounce your ar­rival at Slab City – in Ni­land, California

Lo­cat­ed just east of State Route 111, the en­trance to Slab City is eas­i­ly rec­og­nized by Sal­va­tion Mountain
 

The colour­ful three sto­ry Sal­va­tion Moun­tain wel­comes you.

Sal­va­tion Moun­tain is a small hill ap­prox­i­mate­ly three sto­ries high which is en­tire­ly cov­ered in acrylic paint, con­crete and adobe and fes­tooned with Bible vers­es. It is a project of over two decades by Leonard Knight (now deceased).

Lots of colour­ful rooms, ar­eas to see

 

There are paint­ed old ve­hi­cles everywhere

Three sto­ries up at the top of one of the con­struc­tions … no rail
 

And fur­ther in there’s a com­mu­ni­ty of artists, East Je­sus (which is slang for mid­dle of nowhere) with hun­dreds of as­sem­blages and in­stal­la­tions built out of junk.

The ki­net­ic en­try to East Je­sus, the art col­lec­tive (Stephanie’s shot of me)

East Je­sus is an ex­per­i­men­tal, sus­tain­able, hab­it­able, art in­stal­la­tion lo­cat­ed in the Slab City area. There is no re­li­gious con­no­ta­tion in the name East Je­sus – it’s a col­lo­qui­al­ism for the mid­dle of nowhere
 

Loved the re­pur­pos­ing of all the old tele­vi­sions, paint­ed with un­der­ly­ing TV messages
 

 

Desert de­coy pond

Eat­en alive by plas­tic bags

Wall of bot­tles … made me think of Watts Tow­ers

Pos­si­bly the most pho­tographed piece of art there

Stephanie will­ing­ly aid­ed my pho­tog­ra­phy by mod­el­ing (hav­ing been a pro) adding sub­stance and scale.

Slab City: Worth a visit.

—jill bell

Flom­mist Jill Bell is a let­ter­ing artist and type de­sign­er. Copy­right © 2016 Jill Bell.

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