Top 10 Guerrilla Artists
A Backyard Landmark
Simon Rhodia didn't have any flashy nicknames or trendy signatures. But what the Italian immigrant lacked in street cred, he made up for with patience and hard work. From 1920 to 1951, Rhodia, a part-time construction worker and coal miner, built 17 sculptures in his backyard in south Los Angeles. Dubbed the Watts Towers, the complex is composed entirely of steel pipes wrapped in wire mesh, coated with mortar and embellished with 75,000 sea shells and thousands of shards of broken mirrors, tile, pottery and glass. Two of the towers stand more than a hundred feet tall; a height made more impressive by the fact that Rhodia didn't use scaffolding. Though his creation would later become one of just nine works of folk art to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it wasn't an immediate hit with the neighbors. During World War II, rumors spread that the towers were being used to transmit secrets to the Japanese, and later to communist sympathizers. In 1957, three years after Rhodia deeded his land to a friend and moved away, local officials declared it an "unauthorized public hazard" and threatened to demolish it. (The city later reversed its plans and started charging an entry fee.) When asked what inspired him to embark on such a massive undertaking, he replied simply: "I had in mind to do something big, and I did it."