East Jesus

The caretaker of Salvation Mountain offered us a final recommendation before turning his attention to another group of visitors. “If you like this, I’m sure you’ll like East Jesus. It’s just a mile away. Turn left where the road ends.”

Okay. We were game. I mean, we were in the middle of nowhere driving down a dirt road that hadn’t been kissed by modern civilization in a month of Sundays, but heck, isn’t one possible component of an adventure communing with that which is unknown?

Slowly, we made our way down the rough, dusty path, which ended abruptly. “I guess this is where we turn left,” I whispered, my shoulders and jaw tightened as Kurt steered the Jeep down a much more narrow space.

I mentally scolded myself. “Chillax, chica.”

There was no ticket booth or facility that deemed itself “Admission Station”; we decided to leave the car in what we figured was a parking area.

The only evidence of human occupation were dusty footprints….and some very thought provoking works of art.

Established in 2007, East Jesus is the fruition of the vision of Charlie Russell, a professional in the tech industry who, after working alongside Salvation Mountain’s Leonard Knight, decided to leave the comfort of his career, following a new quest of creating what he called “The Last Free Place.”

Each art installation is made from recycled, reused or repurposed items. We found them to be both fascinating and thought provoking. What’s more amazing is that this is not a static environment. East Jesus has welcomed numerous creative minds and their works.

We spent more than an hour there taking photos, careful not to disturb anyone or anything. To be honest, I was secretly hoping that one of the resident artists would appear, and perhaps take some time to engage in a fruitful conversation about how this exercise has the potential to impact more than an abandoned military base in the middle of the California Desert.

Maybe it’s best that they stayed in the shadows. Sometimes silence speaks much more loudly than words.