Listen to this story here:
LINKS:
Save The Supper GoFundMe
Desert Christ Park Website
Nestled into the northern hills that overlook Yucca Valley are fifty stark white statues contrasting with the brown hills and blue desert skies.
Roxanne Miller and Kathleen Gibson are board members and caretakers of Desert Christ Park, a community sculpture garden that’s been overlooking Yucca Valley since 1961. It started with a priest named Eddie Garver, a sculptor named Frank “Antone” Martin and a ten-foot five-ton statue of Jesus was originally intended for the Grand Canyon. When the Grand Canyon didn’t want it, both men made the long journey with the statue to where it sits today as the Morongo Basin’s own humble version of “Christ the Redeemer.”
Martin and Garver continued to add statues to the park over the next decade, some humble and hidden in the hillside, while others are harder to miss such as Martin’s monolithic bas-relief version of “The Last Supper.”
Kathleen Gibson: “It’s thirty-two feet tall at the peak, and seventy-five feet across, and approximately one hundred and twenty-five tons. All concrete.”
Over sixty years of desert weather and water runoff has taken its toll on the concrete façade which is why the park is raising money to cover the repairs. Despite the typical harsh sun and wind, the high desert’s climate can be kind to outdoor art but decades of monsoon weather and rain runoff has penetrated into the bones of the sculpture, breaking it down from the inside out.
Kathleen Gibson: “He actually carved the cement. This one is all wood.. what he actually did is carve the bas-relief on wood, and actually coated it (with cement). So that’s where we are getting the moisture from… the wood”
The work on the base will be similar to digging out a basement and waterproofing. A local artist who has previously worked at the park will be restoring the sculpture back to its former glory. The repairs are specialized and costly which is why the non-profit park has setup a separate GoFundMe that will directly pay for the restoration.
An increase in visitors over the last few years has helped cover the costs of keeping the park open and free to the public. The desert landscape that serves as a backdrop for the statues has chipped away at the art over the years, along with the original artist’s intentions for the pieces.
ROXANNE MILLER: “The fine line is – are you altering the artist’s original creation by restoring it? We decided it was important to bring it back and restore what we could without changing the artist’s desire for the way things were created. Follow his footsteps rather than alter them.”
The restoration of “The Last Supper” has already begun and the park is open everyday from sunrise to sunset.
For z1077 News, I’m assignment reporter Robert Haydon.
Photos of Construction of “The Last Supper” Facade
