The extraordinary Watts Towers were created over the course of three decades by a determined, single-minded artist, Sabato Rodia, a highly remarkable Italian immigrant laborer who wanted to do “something big.” Now a National Historic Landmark and internationally renowned destination, the Watts Towers in Los Angeles are both a personal artistic expression and a collective symbol of Nuestro Pueblo—Our Town/Our People. Featuring fresh and innovative examinations that mine deeper and broader than ever before, Sabato Rodia’s Towers in Watts is a much anticipated revisitation of the man and his towers.
In 1919, Sabato Rodia purchased a triangular plot of land in a multiethnic, working-class, semi-rural district. He set to work on an unusual building project in his own yard. By night, Rodia dreamed and excogitated, and by day he built. He experimented with form, color, texture, cement mixtures, and construction techniques. He built, tore down, and re-built. As an artist completely possessed by his work, he was often derided as an incomprehensible crazy man.
Providing a multifaceted, holistic understanding of Rodia, the towers, and the cultural/social/physical environment within which the towers and their maker can be understood, Sabato Rodia’s Towers in Watts compiles essays from twenty authors, offering perspectives from the arts, the communities involved in the preservation and interpretation of the towers, and the academy. Most of the contributions originated at two interdisciplinary conferences held in Los Angeles and in Italy: “Art & Migration: Sabato Rodia’s Towers in Watts, Los Angeles” and “The Watts Towers Common Ground Initiative: Art, Migrations, Development.”
The Watts Towers are wondrous objects of art and architecture as well as the expression and embodiment of the resolve of a singular artistic genius to do something great. But they also recount the heroic civic efforts (art and social action) to save them, both of which continue to this day to evoke awe and inspiration. Sabato Rodia’s Towers in Watts presents a well-rounded tribute to one man’s tenacious labor of love.
A portion of royalties from this book will go to support the work of the Watts Towers Arts Center.
- Cover
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Sabato Rodia’s Towers in Watts and the Search for Common Ground
- Part I. Situating Sabato Rodia and the Watts Towers: Art Movements, Cultural Contexts, and Migrations
- Local Art, Global Issues: Tales of Survival and Demise Among Contemporary Art Environments
- Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere: Structure and Performance in Rodia’s Watts Towers
- Sam Rodia’s Watts Towers in Six Sections in Succession
- Without Precedent: The Watts Towers
- An Era of Grand Ambitions: Sam Rodia and California Modernism
- A California Detour on the Road to Italy: The Hubcap Ranch, the Napa Valley, and Italian American Identity
- The Gigli of Nola During Rodia’s Times
- The Literary and Immigrant Contexts of Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers
- Sabato Rodia’s Towers in Watts: Art, Migration, and Italian Imaginaries
- “Why a Man Makes the Shoes?”: Italian American Art and Philosophy in Sabato Rodia’s Watts Towers
- Parallel Expressions: Artistic Contributions of Italian Immigrants in the Rio de la Plata Basin of South America at the Time of Simon Rodia
- Part II. The Watts Towers Contested: Conservation, Guardianship, and Cultural Heritage
- Fifty Years of Guardianship: The Committee for Simon Rodia’s Towers in Watts (CSRTW)
- A Custody Case: Ownership of Rodia’s Towers
- Nuestro Pueblo: The Spatial and Cultural Politics of Los Angeles’s Watts Towers
- Reading the Watts Towers, Teaching Los Angeles: Storytelling and Public Art
- Spires and Towers Between Tangible, Intangible, and Contested Transnational Cultural Heritage
- Part III. The Watts Towers and Community Development
- Artists in Conversation: R. Judson Powell, John Outterbridge, Charles Dickson, Betye Saar, Kenzi Shiokava, Augustine Aguirre, Artist’s Panel moderated by Rosie Lee Hooks (Saturday, October 23, 2010, 121 Dodd Hall, UCLA)
- Building Community Through Self-Awareness and Self-Expression
- Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers: Sociopolitical Realities, Economic Underdevelopment, and Renaissance: Yesterday and Today
- Afterword: Personal Reflections on the Watts Towers Common Ground Initiative
- Appendices
- A. Conversations with Rodia, 1953–1964
- A.1. Interview of S. Rodia, with William Hale and Ray Wisniewsky, Watts, 1953
- A.2. Interview with Simon Rodia, by William Hale and Ray Wisniewsky, “At the Towers Site, Standing Outside Rodia’s House,” 1953
- A.3. Conversation with Sam Rodia, by Mae Babitz and Jeanne Morgan, Martinez, California, September, 1960
- A.4. Interviews, Part A, B, with S. Rodia, by Ed Farrell, Jody Farrell, Bud Goldstone, and Seymour Rosen, Martinez; and University of California, Berkeley
- A.5. Report on Visits to Simon Rodia, Made to CSRTW, from Jody Farrell (Bud Goldstone, Seymour Rosen, Ed Farrell and Jody Farrell), Martinez and Berkeley, California, October 17, 1961; and San Francisco Museum of Art, October 19, 1961
- A.6. Letter to the CSRTW, by Claudio Segre [Segrè], Re: Visit with Rodia in Martinez, California, January 25, 1962
- A.7. “New Yorker Reporter Visits Rodia,” Report to the CSRTW, Re: Interview with Simon Rodia and Relatives, by Calvin Trillin, Nicholas King, Jeanne Morgan, and Beniamino Bufano, Martinez, California, August 30, 1964
- A.8. Conversations with Rodia, Report by Jeanne Morgan, Re: Visits in Martinez, California, May 20, June 15, July 5, August 10, September 10, 1964, and comments on New Yorker visit of August 30, 1964
- A.9. Last Conversation with Sam Rodia, Report by Jeanne Morgan, Re: Visit in Martinez, California, December 22, 1964
- A.10. Interviews with S. Rodia, by Norma Ashley-David, Martinez, California, March [1964?]
- A.11. Interview (Excerpts) with Rodia’s Neighbors, by Bud Goldstone, Long Beach, California, 1963
- A.12. Interview with S. Rodia, by Nicholas King, Martinez, California, September, 1960
- Notes
- List of Contributors
- Index
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