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| A virtual rock landscape of colors |
My wonderful wife, Laureen, and I were visiting Las Vegas, when a guest at the Venetian asked me if we had stopped along Interstate 15 to check out the Seven Magic Mountains.
“They are a work of art,” the man dressed in puffy sleeves and tights told me. “We stop there every time we come to Las Vegas.”
Magic mushrooms I remembered. A great time to sit back and contemplate the events of the world while studying one’s navel. But magic mountains?
“Dude,” a long haired-hippie-dude may have said. “These shrooms are like opening up the universe to me, dude.”
If I had been there, I may have replied, “Dude, you look like a walrus but with a tighter mustache.”
Of course, the above is just for giggles. I have never delved into the world of drugs. Though there was a time when possibly I ingested something innocently and two days later round up at Machu Picchu in Peru, where a Shaman had tattooed a map of the lost Incan treasure on my hairy back.
“It’s a map,” I confessed to Laureen.
“They are freckles,” she stated with a roll of the eyes that could be felt in Cuzco,
Sure, then why did I keep getting emails from the History Channel from lost treasure hunters?
So, on the way out of Sin City, we decided to pull off of Interstate 15 and investigate all the hubbub of these Seven Magic Mountains.
“Should have stopped by a CBD store for this experience,” I said to Laureen.
“Put the car in park.”
The free parking lot was full. I had to wait until a family decided they had had enough of the Seven Magic Mushrooms - oops, the Seven Magic Mountains -- before a spot was available,
The father looked at his wife, who was jockeying the horde of kids into the minivan, “I swear I saw Captain Kirk standing by one of the tall rock sculptures. He spoke to me.”
With the last child seatbelt fastened, the wife calmly took the vehicle's keys and instructed her husband there would be no intergalactic travel that day.
Running parallel with Interstate 15, approximately a dozen miles south of Las Vegas,this is a sight to behold. Huge multi-colored boulders stacked on top of each other towering over the flat desert landscape.
It's not just the juxtaposition of these structures that makes a traveler ponder how this could be created but the gorgeously vivid colors painted on each boulder is an artistic palette.
There were so many folks wandering around the boulder works of art that I lost count.
There were Hindus, Taosists, Shintos, Christians, Islamists, and those with tin foil wrapped around their craniums.
Yes, being a travel writer I asked each person where they were from. I suddenly stopped when a man stated that he had just been released from San Quentin.
“The teardrop tats beneath my eyes,” he said, “Nothing to concern yourself with”
It was a place for all, and all were welcomed,
The creator of this field of creativity was a Swiss artist by the name of Ugo Rondinone. His dream was to explore, ‘a creative expression of human presence in the desert. Seven Magic Mountains punctuates the Mojave with a poetic burst of form and color.’
In the middle of nowhere, Ugo decided to stack boulders, some over 30 feet tall, to allow travelers enroute along Interstate 15 to share in his vision in the Nevada desert.
It should be noted that the work was funded and sponsored by the Nevada Museum of Art, along with other non-profit groups who were very excited to be part of the largest land based art installation in the United States in the last 40 years.
I really had no idea what a land based art installation was until I asked Mr. Google. But, it is really a cool thing to experience up close and personal.
The process was not easy when the art project began in December of 2015. Huge boulders were brought to the location and then were carefully cut into smaller boulders to Rondinone’s exact specifications.
Once the large boulders were cut into the correct size according to the artist, holes were then cut through to allow each boulder to sit atop another by the use of metal rods and bolts to ensure they would not topple over on visitors.
Nothing worse than having a 40,000 pound neon pink boulder falling on a guy taking a selfie at the bottom of a column of boulders,
“Well, that little incident won’t be staying in Vegas,” a tourist may note after watching a six foot male squashed into the desert floor.
The project took an entire army of engineers, metal workers, boulder cutters, crane operators and other construction experts to complete Rondinone’s dream.
The motto of how it was all put together was simple - ‘One boulder at a time.’ And with 33 boulders, one weighing nearly 56,000 pounds, that was a lot of combined effort and talent.
What stands out, besides the feeling a person may be looking at a modern day StoneHenge painted in various colors of day-glo paint, is the precarious-appearing boulders stacked on top of each other. They seem to be defying gravity for the onlooker.
Being situated near Jean Dry Lake, within the Ivanpah Valley, winds howl through the flatness of the desert like folks running through the front doors of Walmart on a Black Friday sale.
“Watch out Ethel,” a husband may say to his wife. “The winds are blowing nigh-on three hundred miles per hour. And don’t forget that they have big screens for a buck today.”
The amount of engineering genius it took to ensure those boulders don’t fall over in the extreme desert conditions is amazing.
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| A true balancing act |
With the backdrop of the Sheep Mountains, the Seven Magic Mountains is the perfect opportunity for both amateur and professional photographers to get out and about for that perfect frame.
Per the Seven Magic Mountains website, ‘the installation creates a dialogue between the natural and the artificial, the rural and the urban. The natural form of the rocks contrasts with their artificial paint, symbolizing the intersection of human culture with the natural world,’
That was cranium deep.
When asked, Rondinone stated, “I just had some time on my hands and a bunch of boulders in the front yard, and I thought - why not?”
Actually, he did not say that.
Situated on Bureau of Land Management land, the artist was allowed just two years to display the brightly painted seven stacked columns of boulder,s but after it was completed in 2016, the response was so positive that the BLM allowed another couple of years to pass, Now, after having nearly 1,000 visitors per day touring the land based art installation, that has been extended through 2027.
As Laureen and I wandered around the luminescent boulder creations, we suspected this timeline may be extended as well. It is free to park, free to enter, and free to experience the wonders of the desert suddenly alive with tall beautifully sculptured pieces of art.
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| John R Beyer, loving the shades of colors |
I took a photo of Laureen near a vivid purple boulder. Laureen took a photo of me standing by a bright blue boulder. Laureen was asked to take photos from strangers as they posed with their families in front of various colored boulders.
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| Laureen Beyer, holding up a stack of brightly painted rocks |
I offered, but with a smile the strangers declined and handed their phones and cameras to Laureen. I wasn’t upset by the slight, since I did not want to take their dumb photos in the first place.
With the hundreds of people walking about the exhibit, it was refreshing to see all the smiles, the wonder in voices, and the joy people felt by just being in the center of this magical art destination.
As I mentioned, every color, every nationality, every creed was on display with the folks visiting and enjoying one man’s vision to bring us all together at the Seven Magic Mountains.
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| Lots of visitors each and every day |
We talked to each other, pointed this and that out to each other, and smiled goodbye when we left. It was an enriching experience and one that should perhaps be duplicated worldwide.
That would be nice.
For more information: https://sevenmagicmountains.com
John can be contacted at beyersbyways@gmail.com
