I took these photos with my plastic cameras fitted with #25 red gels and was shooting with infrared film. The light was very hot and my cameras have no f-stops, etc. just point and shoot.
The Morongo Basin is centrally located in the southern part of California. The basin consists of Joshua Tree National Park, and the communities of Landers, Joshua Tree, Morongo Valley, Pioneertown, Twentynine Palms, Wonder Valley, and Yucca Valley. The basin stretches from Interstate 10 in the south to Interstate 40 in the north. It lies within the High Desert region and the Mojave Desert.
I’ve taken several trips to this part of the southern California desert, catching glimpses of past treasures and observing what has happened to them. Desert Christ Park is one of those treasures and was once know as the Morongo Basin Lure. I’ve twice walked the grounds of this once beautiful garden where the statues continue to struggle to stand against earthquakes, vandalism and neglect. Surrounded by the statues, it’s impossible not to appreciate the passion that drove (Frank) Antone Martin to take on such an incredible artistic challenge.
Exhausted and worn by the many hundreds of tons of concrete that he personally prepared and carried, his final project resulted in his illness and death on December 23, 1961, at the age of 74.
Antone Martin the sculptor and creator, was a former aircraft worker who started sculpting the figures during the height of the A-bomb scare in the mid-1940s. The larger-than-lifesize groups and individual figures express Antone Martin’s dedication to the concept of peace and good will on earth, and his hope that his works would bring mankind together in peace and love for one another. All of the sculptures are made of steel-reinforced concrete, hand-finished with a white paint/plaster mixture, with the hope of them withstanding a nuclear bomb.
(Frank) Antone Martin spent the last ten years of his life dedicated to the creation of his “Peace on Earth and the Brotherhood of Man” sculpture garden.
(Frank) Antone Martin spent the last ten years of his life dedicated to the creation of his “Peace on Earth and the Brotherhood of Man” sculpture garden.
I have self-published a book through Blurb.com. If you would like to check it out you can find it here:
If you'd like to know more about the park you can check it out here: http://www.desertchristpark.org/
