In the story “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” blind men use their limited sensory capabilities to draw conclusions about the elephant, comparing the beast to a rope, a snake, a tree branch, a pillar, a wall, and a pipe, eventually discovering that each of them held a piece of the larger epistemological puzzle. The story thus functions as an analogy that describes the processes of discovery and the subjective nature of truth. Likewise, Sabato Rodia’s Towers in Watts: Art, Migrations, Development exhibits a similar mode of inquiry, although instead of relying on the opinions of the seeing-impaired, the volume presents the penetrating perceptions of scholars, folklorists, activists, artists, and historians, including Luisa del Giudice (also the volume’s editor), Joseph Sciorra, Katia Ballachino, Jeanne S. Morgan, Kenneth Scambray, Jo Farb Hernandez, Rosie Lee Hooks, Paul A. Harris, and others. Together, these individuals shed light on the life of the Italian immigrant Sabato Rodia and cultural meanings of his enduring and enigmatic artistic productions: the Watts Towers. The book methodically tackles questions regarding the aesthetic of Rodia’s towers and its place in larger artistic movements, both locally and globally; the attempts to preserve the towers made by the Committee for Simon Rodia’s Towers of Watts (CSRTW) in the face of apathy and conflict; and the past, present, and future role of the towers in the development of the Watts arts community.
Rodia was born in the Campania region of Italy in 1879, but only remained there until around 1890 when he immigrated to the United States to join his brother and become a coal miner in Pennsylvania. When his brother died, del Giudice tells us, he became a wanderer, “working at many manual labor jobs, drinking too much, and leading something of a vagabond’s life” (1). After sobering up, he took it upon himself to do “something big….Something they never got ’em in the world” (92). For Rodia, that something consisted of thirty-three years (1921-1954) of building “many towers, a ship, fountains, ovens, and assorted garden art” from concrete and steel, which he inlaid with “bits of tile, glass, pottery, and seashells” in his own property in the community of Watts, California (2). Many of the writers in this volume emphasize Rodia’s own reluctance to impose a fixed meaning on his work or at times even to explain his purpose in building the towers; when asked why he built them, he retorted with a series of rhetorical questions, “Why I build the towers?....Why a man make the pants? Why a man make the shoes?” (92). At another time, he gave a more declarative, though still highly ambiguous response to the same question: “They mean lotsa things, son” (5). One can understand Rodia’s unwillingness to supply more direct answers to the question of meaning as a way of allowing individuals to construct their own relationship with his art. This book itself exemplifies the development of such variegated relationships through quiet contemplation and reflection and the revelation of the fundamental role of art in the composition of a human being.
Jo Farb Hernandez explores the difficulty of defining the Watts Towers in terms of their genre, comparing them to similar contemporary “art environments” that begin in isolation with a “unique personal aesthetic” (30). This personal and artistic isolation is somewhat misleading at least in Rodia’s case; as Sciorra later claims, “There are aspects of his cultural makeup that cannot be ignored simply because he acted alone” (185). In other words, Rodia’s isolated efforts do not preclude an underlying, perhaps even subconscious, need to recall or reconstruct his italianitá through artistic production. While Hernandez does show they may not be constructed with the community in mind, thus constituting a celebration of the individual, these singular art environments do invite and serve to build community, which certainly connects to Rodia’s succinct statement, “I build the tower. People like. Everybody come” (22). Art as a place of community gathering and building is a fundamental theme throughout this volume. In the chapter “The Gigli of Nola during Rodia’s Times,” Felice Ceparano explores the relationship between Rodia’s art and the folk ritual of the giglii of Nola, an argument which revisits the scholarly hypothesis proposed by I. Sheldon Posen and Daniel Franklin Ward in 1985. The gigli (Italian for lilies) ritual constitutes an enormous street party in which wooden towers called gigli, adorned with papier-mâché statues and living dancers as well as a wooden ship, are carried in a procession through the streets.
Rodia’s art does not simply draw on the communal heritage and traditions of his patria, but it has also united the community of Watts in the cause of saving the towers from threatened demolition and political apathy. Morgan’s chapter follows the advocacy of the CSRTW as it sought to save Rodia’s art and procure funds and government provision to maintain it. Lee Hooks discusses the relationship between the towers, the community, and the Watts Towers Arts Center that has functioned as a “safe, creative environment…a refuge to our children and to the community” (311). She writes, “The Watts Towers are a powerful source of energy and inspiration as they rise like a phoenix from the earth, leading us to embrace the courage to believe in ourselves and to follow our hearts” (312). In other words, preservation of the artistic past as symbolized in the art of Rodia and other artists constitutes a preservation of future creativity, and the development of that future relies on the maintenance of the past.
This volume is more than a simple extrapolation of the many meanings of a particular folk object. It appeals to those interested in folk art and material culture, twentieth-century Italian American history and culture, and folklore in the public sector. It is a book of searching, of meditations and possibilities, of the enduring relationship between artists, their work, their communities, and the difference that collaborative advocacy for art can make.
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[Review length: 985 words • Review posted on February 11, 2015]