Southern California desert city could get junk-car monument
Monday February 10, 2003BARSTOW, Calif. (AP) Greece has the Parthenon. This Mojave Desert town may get the Carthenon.
That's what artist Curtis Zaxxr Llewellyn calls his design for a 40-foot-tall gateway. The project would use junked cars, crushed into cubes and assembled into five columns. Topping them would be an aluminum sign sporting tailfins resembling those of a 1959 Cadillac.
Wayne Soppeland supports the idea. Historic Route 66 ran through town and Soppeland, a local realtor, said he wants to erect the sculpture as ``something that the people could be proud of and identify with.''
It would be something that ``shows that the people in Barstow have some class,'' he said.
Soppeland heads the economic development committee of the local Chamber of Commerce, which had discussed putting up entry signs for the town.
Llewellyn, who designs such art for a living, got into the picture last year when he stopped at a local motel during a business trip.
``I heard about their plans,'' Llewellyn said. ``I love working with these small towns in the middle of nowhere.''
``He tried to get a feel for the community,'' Soppeland said. ``The feeling he came up with was a community that was related to transportation. It always has been, since the Mormon trail crosses through here, and the Mojave trail and other Indian trails. Then other modern routes, like Route 66, then the freeway and the railroads.''
The chamber is hoping to build the Carthenon by summer, although the state's budget crunch has meant the city, concerned about its own finances, is unlikely to contribute to the $160,000 project.
Soppeland said local contractors have promised free work to prepare a hilltop site and he hopes to raise money from public and private art grants.
The crushed cars would come from junkyards across the country.
``We talked about collecting some classic cars, the kind that drove Route 66, and having them crushed. I'd love to have a ... 1957 Chevy, but it would be sacrilegious to crush one,'' he said.
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