Eccentric desert art - Amargosa Opera House and Goldwell Museum
2/13/16 • Written by Nancy
"Lady Desert," by Dr. Hugh Heyrman (1992)
Rhyolite, Nevada, at Goldwell Open Air Museum
Julianne and I are carrying on our project of traveling by car in a great circle from Detroit to Seattle. So far, we enjoyed Christmas in New Orleans, then booked it across western Louisiana, southern Texas, and southern New Mexico. To Arizona where we stayed a month in Tubac and Tuscon, then up to Jerome and Grand Canyon.
After that we headed west past Hoover Dam and Las Vegas, to Death Valley (actually in California). Many of our notes and pictures only saw daylight in our FB postings, as we have been too restless to actually write complete sentences. Hopefully I'll do some retrospective postings to the blog. But for now, onward!
Here we are resting in Lone Pine, California, for a few days, and I want to look back upon Nevada a little. We only saw a little of it, the southern tip. But still.
Nevada struck us both as the most amazing place. The bleakness of the landscape attracts few people to settle and try to make a go of it -- we thought, before we got there. We've had to reconsider every bit of what we assumed about Nevada, including the notion of bleakness itself.
Passing on Las Vegas
Let's get Las Vegas out of the way. It's got fantastic architecture, but really, it's all for commercial purposes, and I don't count it in the same basket as art that comes from the heart. But it certainly fits in the fantasy basket.
Sphinx in Las Vegas, pyramid behind, obelisk in front
In Las Vegas, we had lunch with a friend of Julianne's from her working days. Eva is a down-to-earth, smart person who retired to Vegas for the weather and cheap prices. She seemed slightly surprised we were going to the Strip. Just looking for fantasy. Don't have to gamble.
Statue of Liberty with roller coaster
Venice-style fantasy - or something about Carnival?
We drifted along the Strip, stopping for photos as possible. Out-the-car-window shots, many of course out of focus or bad angles. Too bad about the poor focus on the blonde young "cops" in thigh-high boots, high-cut short-shorts, official badges on their hats and handcuffs at their waists. There was a fantasy.
Goldwell Open Air Museum
There's good imaginative art in southern Nevada, for instance the Goldwell Museum, close to Rhyolite.
Rhyolite is a ghost town close to Beatty. We stayed at the El Portal Motel in Beatty, a town founded in 1904 to supply miners at Rhyolite. Beatty has always been small and unpretentious, with a couple restaurants, a gas station or two, and businesses that only open when you call the proprietor. It has a little local museum, a library in a geodesic dome, and a stream, the Amargosa River, which actually flows in this desert. Come to think of it, the water is the reason the town survived.
Rhyolite, on the other hand, had the gold mine. Discovered 1904, and by 1907 it had 5,000 people looking for a buck. A train station, a hotel, several banks and a school, also of course saloons and brothels. No natural water, though. And not as much gold as suppposed - by 1917 it was all but abandoned, with houses and other assets moved to Beatty or left to ruin.
Rhyolite train station, with Joshua trees and chain link fencing
Ouside Rhyolite stands the Goldwell Open Air Museum, a serious endeavor to preserve outdoor sculpture in Nevada. It began 1984 with "The Last Supper" and other works by Albert Szukalski, and has been going on since. There's more to it than meets the eye, and the visual impact is engaging on its own.
Amargosa Opera House
The Amargosa Opera House and Hotel just misses being in Nevada. But since the road is straight and the border is hardly marked, and since the hotel doesn't offer any food (for which you have to drive over to the Longstreet Casino in Nevada), I will consider it an honorary citizen of Nevada. Honestly, it should be in Nevada.
It's quirky, with an atmosphere of being a manifestation of sheer will. A dancer with Radio City Music Hall,Marta Becket, by a process of serendipity found herself in Death Valley Junction - you can read her story at the link.
She (and her husband, who later left) established her theater in the abandoned building she found, painting the scenery and the walls, establishing the program, dancing. Through ups and downs, over decades, she continued. The building was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012, and stands now as anon-profit hotel and theater. Marta, 91, still lives there, and only stopped dancing herself at age 85.
We stayed there one night, charmed by the whole thing. Sadly, we were there on Thursday, so we missed the Friday night performance by Jenna McCintock, a ballet dancer recreating Marta Becket's ouvre. If you go, be sure it's a weekend!
Satin cover, and golden swan painted by Marta Becket
Bedroom wall, painted by Marta
Now isn't that too darling for words?
TLC would be welcome.
That was our last night near Death Valley. We intended to shift to Lone Pine, California, and come back for another day in Death Valley. But the road from Death Valley to Lone Pine! We couldn't do it again. Once was too many times, actually. More on that in another post. Meanwhile, I have to think that Nevada is the most eccentric state we've been in, so far. Hm. Rural Louisiana gives it a run for the money. And, what about south Texas? Hm. We can go on!
Nancy Donnelly
