Saving Eliphante

Saving Eliphante
January 2011
The Noise
The Outs
Ellen Jo Roberts

“Eliphante is unique in all the world, born from the pure creative well at the core of the human spirit, unhampered by regulations from without. As a result, it speaks to that place of creative power in each of us, and most people respond with both awe and excitement about the possibilities of really living by one's inner striving for beauty, really making it manifest, in all aspects of one's life.”
-Alna Laurel, director of Eliphante.



Beginning around 1979, and continuing for the better part of three decades, Michael and Leda Kahn created a magical folk art installation along the sycamore and mesquite-lined banks of Oak Creek in Cornville, Arizona. The entire complex is known as “Eliphante”, named after the first structure created, which resembles, with its ear-side doors and river wood snout, an elephant of sorts. Several buildings followed: the “Hippodome”, “Pipe Dreams”, smaller houses, outdoor kitchen, amphitheater and assorted art installations. The structures and art spaces are all designed with native natural materials, sandstone, wood, salvaged glass, mylar, foil, tile and metal, and many years of creativity, love and hard work. With its faded astro-turf pathways, donated by a Sedona tennis club, it's like a surreal mixed-media miniature golf course. It’s an open-air museum of alternative possibilities. Eliphante is a dreamscape.

It is also currently endangered: threatened by decay, crumbling infrastructure, and sitting on land at risk of being sold and leveled.



Traveling from Provinceton, Massachussetts in a 1960 Ford truck they called “Botchi”, Michael and Leda Kahn arrived in the Sedona area in 1977, artistic visionaries looking for a new way of life. It was not long before the Kahns connected with the Croziers, the landowners of the acreage that includes Eliphante’s parcel. The Croziers were also transplants from “back east”, and soon the Kahns were invited to become caretakers of the property. . The Croziers are benevolent landlords, generous and philosophical. A dynamic relationship was developed.
“The property is at present still owned by the original owners who invited Mike and Leda as caretakers back in '79”, states Ms. Laurel, “They originally bought 120 acres as an active cattle ranch, not in operation for many years, and have sold some of it. They had owned it only a few years before Mike and Leda entered the picture.”



The Kahns were sheltered at first in a truck-bed camper during the warm seasons. “As autumn came along, Mike felt moved to begin constructing a warmer winter shelter by digging into the hillside back of their camp, with earth insulation in mind,” explains Ms. Laurel,
“He gathered rocks from the hillside and from a dry wash half a mile back of the camp area, where he walked daily, both morning and evening, and brought back as many rocks as he could carry on his back in burlap sacks slung over his shoulder. Sometimes it would be two or three good-size stones. Other times, one would be all he could manage, it was so big. Usually he would get Leda to go along and carry her fair share as well.”



“The building called Eliphante was built to be the home of Michael and Leda, but became in process such a work of art that it was never lived in. Though it served as stage for weekly music jams for many years, and also sheltered a few overnight guests on occasion, with or without the knowledge of Mike and Leda,” says Ms. Laurel, “This building with no straight lines or flat surfaces, made of found objects both natural and man-made, combining such disparate elements as driftwood and old auto windshields, manages to evoke the same high wonder and longing for what is true and pure and good as Tolkein's Elvenhome of Rivendell. Or at least the Hobbit homes of the Shire. A longing for times more innocent when creativity was unfettered by rules and unconfined by preconceived ideas of how things must be.”



John Bianchini, a member of the Noise family (and former editor), is part of a small group of caretakers who currently inhabit Eliphante. An NAU journalism graduate originally from Salinas, California, Bianchini had the pleasure of meeting the Kahns in 2005, while taking photographs for a Noise feature written by Natasha Shealy. "Most who knew Michael cannot explain what Eliphante's intent was. It was never really an issue then. They do echo that Michael lived his life 'in-the-moment' and that he would just set-out and create these things whether or not people liked it or helped him.”



Mr. Bianchini is actively involved in the preservation of Eliphante, and rousing folks to action on its behalf. “They call us ‘caretakers’, but I like to think of myself as ‘Guerrilla Outreach’ because I try more to get people involved to decide what should be done before going out and just doing it.”
"For many people, Eliphante reflects individual perceptions of where we are mentally. While a few have been put-off by its poverty and ruggedness, most see it as a magical land just short of gnomes and fairies”, says Mr. Bianchini, "Living in art is a way-of-life; something most people yearn for. Americans don't have much art in their daily lives and that might be the reason for the decline of American civilization.”

In 1994, the Smithsonian American Art Museum catalogued Eliphante into its “SOS-Save Our Sculpture” public awareness project, a growing list of U.S. public sculptural art to be documented, and conserved.

Michael Kahn of Eliphante, Paolo Soleri of Arconsanti and renowned Arizona sculptor John Waddell were all friends, and are considered to be artistic contemporaries because, according to Mr. Waddell, they “all sought to create something that could change society,” and they were “the rare few with the training and skill, willing and able and disciplined enough to follow their vision despite the obstacles that would hold most people back.”
Verde Valley resident Waddell is fond of Eliphante and what it represents.
"Michael was a man who had a vision of a completely non-commercial form of art,” says Mr. Waddell, “That in of itself was the motivation and satisfaction that it was made not for the market but for the total being of heart, soul and mind."

Waddell believes Kahn's unique nature had roots in art history. Michael Kahn started as a conventional painter and gradually became non-objective in his handling of materials. This transferred into building of structures that were in a sense non-objective. "At Eliphante you have an account of his day to day experience of putting objects together in an interesting way...'The uniqueness of configuration' is a cohesive construct where he had the impulse to put these found materials together."
The sculptor thinks Eliphante hints at a different way of life where the normal impulse to earn money did not exist. In some cultures, money is not the primary value. “Anyone can be as creative as Michael was. If you can understand this then you are on a progression."

In 2008 Michael Kahn succumbed to Pick’s Disease, a form of Alzheimer’s. In his final years he lost the ability to communicate verbally, but this did not stop him from continuing his creative flourishes and projects at Eliphante.
After his death, Leda moved away, to Santa Fe, New Mexico,



Alna Laurel is the director of Eliphante Ltd., a 501c3 art organization. Her working relationship with Eliphante began in the late 1990s, but her path to it started much earlier, in the mid-1970s, while camping with her father and sisters at the entrance to the old Sexton Ranch in Cornville. Her family camped in the location for years. “While there, my dad met a man who was buying property across the creek from our camp, and the two of them held many long discussions on spiritual and philosophic matters, to mutual satisfaction. When Dad decided to move on to other camping grounds, his friend expressed disappointment that the philosophizing days were to be over. But Dad assured him that someone else would come along to take Dad's place as a spiritual friend.”



Ms. Laurel grew up to lead a creative life unfettered by convention, yet full of travels, adventures, artistic pursuits, family, and continuing education. Fast forward to 1998. Ms. Laurel’s sister, Laurie, searched for their old camping grounds during a road trip through Arizona.
“Finding her way mostly by instinct to the general area she remembered as our home, my sister stopped to ask directions of someone who turned out to be Michael Kahn, out cleaning the culverts at the entrance to Eliphante. Mike said he did indeed know the man Laurie was looking for. He owned the land Mike was camping on. He invited Laurie to look around his camp, which she did with mounting enthusiasm and excitement about all the magical structures defying every common idea of what a building should be.”



“When she went on to meet our old friend who owned that land and had given Mike free reign to build according to his artistic spirit, he told her that Michael Kahn was the one who came along to take our Dad's place as a spiritual friend across the years. And the relationship had been mutually beneficial, the one providing a piece of land and the other a spiritual artistic vision and creative drive which together resulted in Eliphante, a magical inspiration to most who are lucky enough to visit it.

“Naturally, as soon as I could I went to see Eliphante as well, and fell in love with it like most people do who visit.” Ms. Laurel moved from Hawaii to Cornville, “But I didn't get much involved until near the end of Mike's life when his Pick's disease had progressed to the point of speechlessness on his part and plans to leave Eliphante on Leda's part.”
In 2008, Ms. Kahn was present to hear Leda Kahn’s lament about having no one to carry on Eliphante on after she left. “Moved by my love for the place, I boldly volunteered,” said Ms. Kahn, ”only to discover that I knew nothing whatsoever about how to carry it on! I didn't even know what a non-profit was, much less how to operate one.”


Caretakers Ryan Matson and Tracy Schinagel arrived from Portland in 2010, and have called Eliphante home since August, along with their clever and handsome dancing goat, Midas, who nibbles away at weeds and provides manure for gardening. Matson and Schinagel are energetic and artistic; a good blend for Eliphante.



“I have never had the pleasure to meet the Kahns”, says Ms. Schinagel, a charming Tuscon native with a broad smile, “I feel like they created Eliphante out of the desire to surround themselves by beauty and art. They wanted to create something practical with the limited amount of funding available to them. In order for Eliphante to own the land it sits on, it needs to raise enough money to buy the well. If we don't raise the money to buy Eliphante, the land could be put on the market and could be purchased by someone that doesn't have any interest in preserving it.”

photo by Ryan Matson

“When I was younger, I wanted to be an architect”, says Mr. Matson, who spent many of his younger years on the move, “Buildings seemed to be all of the world I could really shape. Then I grew up and went into college, trying my hand at piloting airplanes, civil and mechanical engineering, electronic engineering. I settled on community development with undergraduate studies in the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University.”

In addition to raising the estimated funds for purchasing the property, the director and caretakers are also actively involved in much of the politics and paperwork necessary to preserve Eliphante for the future. The organization estimates they need to raise $75,000 -$100,000 to buy the land where Eliphante sits.
Ms. Laurel says, “Secondarily, we need to repair the three main sculptural buildings: meaning, lots of materials, donated or about $30,000 to buy, and lots and lots of volunteer hours. Probably the primary danger right now is the deterioration of the sculptural buildings, the heart and soul of everything. Whether their repair comes about through funding and volunteerism raised by the 501c3 or through paid labor in case Eliphante becomes purchased by another entity, I am fairly certain the buildings will be repaired to a better quality than they were originally built, beginning 2011.”

Mr. Matson adds that further plans include establishing public access rights, so that they may have commercial activity to generate funds to preserve and restore the land and buildings. Smaller buildings are being patched against rodents and poor weather conditions. Solar showers, composting toilet system, and greywater gardens are also on the agenda. The roof at the Eliphante building is in dire need of repair.
“We are always looking for able-bodied spirits to volunteer at one of our workdays,” says Mr. Matson, his enthusiasm contagious to all who meet him, “We also need donors of money and materials and other long-term financial support. The community we share is the most important asset toward the vision's success. ”
“We would like for it to be a creative space or retreat for artists,” adds Ms. Schinagel, “We would also like to open it for tours to the public.”



Noise favorite Natasha Shealy has returned to the Verde Valley from her North Carolina home in order to participate in saving Eliphante. According to Ms. Shealy, “Eliphante needs to be protected and used to inspire. I struggled with this, feeling it might be best returned to the riverbank it came from. But I feel Eliphante needs to be identified as a community asset and international folk art treasure. Many in the international folk art world would be inspired and astounded.”

"We cannot live how Michael did,” says John Bianchini, “but we recognize its value and seek to reconcile the two forces. When a commercial operation can be established to bring in income for Eliphante, we plan to focus on Eliphante's immediate repairs while working to purchase some surrounding acreage if available then to create an artistic eco-village.”

There are many ways you can become involved in the preservation of Eliphante.
They have a weekly Sunday evening potluck, and work party sessions each Tuesday and Sunday, where volunteers can help create, build, restore, and repair.

Volunteer: call Alna Laurel at (928) 634- 4707,
or Ryan Matson, Tracy Schinagel, and John Bianchini at (928) 634- 2687.
To assist in repairing the roof of the original building, "Eliphante", contact volunteer coordinator: Michael Lanning at (928) 284- 8884

Donate: make check payable to “Eliphante Limited”, and mail to PO box 971,Cornville, AZ 86325

Online: Roadrunnerspeaks.org. Also be sure to join “Eliphante Village” on Facebook.

Other: Donating special knowledge or skills is also greatly needed and appreciated. In particular: non-profit legal advice, film-making for publicity and fund-raising, grant-writing, and special construction skills such as rock-work, roof-work, reinforcing of highly unusual post and beam connections, electrical engineering and plumbing work.Eliphante Ltd. is also seeking volunteers to organize and staff fund-raising events in January, February, and March 2011.

“Eliphante remains a place where one can go to feel re-inspired and have their sense of magical possibilities refreshed, and for this reason alone, it is worthy of preservation,” says Alna Laurel, “Add to that its potential as a venue for awakening people's creative spirit and teaching how to let it blossom, and it becomes an urgent need in the present state of chaos and banality much of our society is experiencing. Where the human spirit feels acknowledged and empowered, there hope and renewal are born and sustained.”



Ellen Jo Roberts thinks Eliphante is the bees knees.
She lives in a historic home made of Verde River sand bricks in Clarkdale Arizona with
Bike Daddy Chad, Cool Clyde, “Five Pounds of Fury” Floyd, and Slobber Face Ivan. Read all about it at Ellenjo.com.

California Dreaming along Highway 1

California Dreaming
Coastal Campout Along Highway 1
The Outs- Ellen Jo Roberts
The Noise
September 2010



California’s Highway 1 is just a road, just a narrow curving ribbon of macadam perched along the western edge of the USA. It’s also something legendary, lyrical, mythical, magical: from books, magazines, movies and commercials.
A National Scenic Byway, it’s been designated an “All American Road”.
We all dream of Highway 1, as part of our collective consciousness.

My husband and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary this summer, a milestone worthy of a special road trip celebration. We wanted to be part of the dream, so we planned a Highway 1 adventure. All year we poured over library books, maps, brochures, Google Earth, and the state park websites, plotting our journey, booking our reservations. For Chad, the planning part is sometimes even more exciting than the trip itself. For months he lay awake in bed at night, satellite imagery dancing in his head.



We travelled on the cheap, loaded up with camping gear and a picnic basket full of dry goods. Our only “luxury” was renting a Toyota Prius for its excellent fuel economy (averaging 50+ mpg), lower environmental impact, and modern comforts like satellite radio, climate & cruise control. We do all our longer road trips like this. Renting a car conserves both our vintage Volkswagens and our marriage.
The scenic routes Chad chose were both more direct, and more time consuming. After our first 13 hours on the road, we arrived in San Luis Obispo County, in a seaside town called Avila Beach, where we set up our tent after dark, at an area campground. The next morning we were up early, making our first memories of Highway 1, via San Luis Obispo. “SLO” as the locals call it, is hopelessly adorable, chock full of tidy Mediterranean bungalows and well-groomed yards. It’s home to California Polytechnic State University (“Cal Poly”), and the delightfully tacky 1950s “Madonna Inn”, with its outsized pink sign, and crazy gingerbread flourishes.





Highway 1 through the central California coast is one of the rare things that lives up to the hype. You fear a collision from gawking at the scenery. It’s also achingly slow moving, constantly curving, elevating, and bound to cause moments of nausea in even the sturdiest passenger. It is riddled with delightful pull-offs and scenic overlooks. The ocean on a cloudy day is grey, but when the fog lifts the water changes color to an unbelievable turquoise, with tangled forests of kelp floating offshore like vegetable soup.

Big Sur, from “El País Grande Del Sur” (big country to the south), a moniker given by Carmel’s early Spanish settlers, remains fairly remote and sparsely populated. Highway 1 wasn’t completed through the area until 1937, and electricity didn’t arrive until the 1950s. Vast stretches are unpopulated, and the mountainous terrain to the east is Los Padres National Forest. The area is historically wealthy with inspiration for photographers, artists , beatniks, poets, writers, and other free spirits escaping from large cities to the south and north.



"McWay Falls” is an icon of Big Sur, a t-shirt emblem just like the Bixby Bridge further north. Located near Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, the waterfall tumbles west of Highway 1 onto a secluded seashore, sheltered in a stone cove. The only creatures on the beach below it were seagulls. It’s off limits to humans, though a boardwalk above allows views of the beautiful scene.


A few hours north on Highway 1, with every mile taking twice as long as we’d planned, we headed east to the quicker 101 to make up some speed to our next destination, San Francisco. It was nearly sunset by the time we arrived in the foggy city by the bay. Even the dreary weather couldn’t dim its loveliness, all vertical and cascading down hills in vintage perfection.



Cold in July, with everyone was wearing sweaters, coats and hats, I kept thinking of Mark Twain’s joke :” The coldest winter I ever spent was the summer I spent in San Francisco.” Perhaps it was a culmination of a long day of driving, the maps strewn everywhere in the cramped car, Chad arguing with the GPS lady-- I dunno-- but I burst into tears driving down famously steep Russian Hill. I was so scared!
We’ve driven on some hair-raising mountain roads before, crawling boulders in the wilderness, but nothing has ever frightened me as much as Lombard Street in San Francisco. I’m no “Bullitt”.
There are stoplights at the top of a 45 degree hill. There are points where you cannot see the road above/ below you and you must just have faith there is nothing in your way as the light turns green. And if your car isn’t in great shape- if the engine is weak or the brakes are bad-- you’d better just go home.



Our San Francisco night was spent at the Motel Capri, an inexpensive mid-century gem located in the Marina District, close walking distance to many interesting street scenes.



Time in San Francisco was too short: just a night and part of the next morning-- not nearly enough to soak up this vibrant city. Hiking up the steep streets on a Sunday morning with all of my cameras clattering, I was grooving on the big city life, being just a face in the crowd, one of many. No one batted an eyelash at me (unlike in my own tiny town where I am a featured landmark.) San Francisco is a smart, wealthy city, beloved by many who’ve left their hearts there. The streets are so steep it’s a full-on cardio work out all the time. A friend of mine lived there for 7 years and says, “Try walking up and down those hills every day, yeesh! I ended up in Delaware - flat as a pancake. To paraphrase Tony Bennett ‘I Left My Girlish Figure in San Francisco.’"



From San Francisco we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge north to Marin County, to have lunch with a dear favorite friend, an Arizona ex-patriot. She and her surfer beau live in a cozy 1910 built "love shack" near the sea in tiny Stinson Beach, and invited us to stay.



We cancelled our camping reservations at Manresa Beach State Park near Santa Cruz in favor of setting up tent in their garden amidst their surfboards, nestled between the fog-shrouded Mt. Tamalpais, “Birthplace of Mountain Biking”, and the cold grey waves of the Pacific.



Marin County is notoriously suspicious of outsiders. Nearby Bolinas is famous for removing their city sign, to discourage tourists. Hanging with the locals we were instantly accepted as locals by proxy. Romping and running wild with our dogs on the beach was a thing of pure joy. Our friends cooked us a wonderful dinner, we drank wine, laughed, and told stories well after dark. It was a highlight of our trip and finally felt like the vacation had begun.



Highway 1 north of San Francisco is fragrant with eucalyptus. The giant groves of quick growing Australian trees are not native, and have their detractors for this reason. Despite this, the willowy giants have somehow become synonymous with California. The gold rush and railroads brought the species here in the 1850s, when the state government authorized and encouraged their quick growing establishment. The astringent smell of the eucalyptus fills our noses.
Suddenly we are in love with this part of California. My mind wanders back to the beautiful eucalyptus tree we already have, in our own Arizona front yard.



Our next campsite was back down the coast at San Simeon State Park, followed by a night at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. We’d reserved all of our campsites months earlier, most of them at state parks for about $40 per night.
Pfeiffer Big Sur, a popular park since 1933, is a bit magical, nestled into the redwoods, and delineated by the clear grey green Big Sur River. There were swarms of ladybugs everywhere when we arrived. I wouldn’t have been surprised at all to see a unicorn.



Side note: They sell beer (!) at California State Parks. (Hey Arizona State Parks, ya’ listening?) After setting up tent it’s customary to take a dip in the Big Sur River. Hot, sunny, drinking beer in the river—just like home.



Chad led us on a sunset expedition to nearby Pfeiffer Beach. Amazing, framed by giant sea bound monoliths, and smooth purple sand, Pfeiffer Beach was blustery cold, full of photographers, picnickers sipping red wine, unruly dogs, and loud crashing waves.



Our final night on the Big Sur Coast was spent at Kirk Creek, a federal campground. There are world-class resorts all up and down Big Sur, each charging hundreds of dollars a night. None would compare to this $22.00 campsite. When we arrived, our jaws dropped. Site #11 at Kirk Creek was the best campsite we've ever had in our lives: big, beautiful, carpeted by soft grass, high on a bluff overlooking the sunny Pacific, surrounded by sweet scented wild fennel, sage, and yarrow. A steep trail leads down to the rocky shore below.









Unpacking, setting up, breaking down, and repacking camp every day was hard work. The Prius was so small we basically had to unload the entire car, and reload the entire car every day. Thank God for Chad's engineering-style mind. The camping life is hard work, toting water, lifting gear, washing dishes outdoors, washing our hair in sinks—everything takes more time and energy.
And somehow, the food tastes better. The sleep in the tent is more restful.
The hard work makes everything more valuable somehow.







Without showers for days, we were kinda’ grungey, with our rock star hair and dirty feet like a couple of goddamn hippies. It didn’t bother me at all, until we took the dogs for a stroll through a field of tall dried thistle, just north of nearby Sand Dollar Beach. Headed to a special seashore Chad selected, I looked down at the dogs and noticed little dark dots all over them. Yanking my chihuahua up by his harness, my fears were confirmed. Ticks! The dogs are covered with ticks!! Panic sets in and a shriek wells in my throat. I start brushing them off of him frantically, brushing them off my bare legs, and looking for the nearest exit. Sitting on a barren bluff, high above the rocky beach, socked in with raging high tide, I managed to clear all the ticks off of Floyd, because they are easy to spot in his pale fur. Ivan, the Boston Terrier was not as lucky. We manage to find most of them in his dark brindley fur, but miss the final two until the next day.
That night I feel itchy all over, and wish for a shower.







Away from the sea and back to the desert, we spent a night at a 1950s built motel in Palm Springs. San Francisco in July is cold enough for polar fleece. Palm Springs in July is like a blast furnace. It was still over 100 degrees when we rolled into town at 9pm, and already back up to 109 by 9am the next day.
Travel tip: Palm Springs motel rooms are cheap in July.



"Salvation Mountain", about 75 miles from the Coachella Valley in a remote sun-baked location near Niland, has been on my list of places to see for years. Our last day on the road, we head a lil’ bit out of our way down to see this amazing bit of folk art. The Colorado Desert sits below sea level, and is sparsely occupied during the summer. Bombay Beach along the Salton Sea is a 1960s resort town gone wrong, a post-apocalyptic paradise full of bombed out trailers and land locked boats.



Further south is “the last free place”, Slab City, a transient community setting up camp on concrete slabs left behind from a World War 2 military installation.



We arrive at Salvation Mountain, a massive bit of crazily colorful religious folk art created by Leonard Knight. Mr. Knight, 78, has spent decades carving and coating the side of a dirt hill with adobe, straw, thousands of gallons of donated paint, and various versions of “God is Love”, scripture, and testimony to Jesus.





Everything is fancifully painted: cars, trucks, bikes, boats. 113 degrees at high noon. I thought my Chuck Taylors might melt. Salvation Mountain was worth the many out-of-the-way miles. It is a true thing of beauty, and as important to American iconography as Highway 1.



Driving through the heat of day, we arrive back in our neighborhood by dusk.
The Verde Valley always looks really good after a long road trip, after driving through many random small towns of assorted quality.
“You know something, this place we live in is pretty damn good. It looks pretty great here.” Back at home we feel exhilarated, relaxed, as we pour over Polaroids, tip back cold California beers, and sit close to the eucalyptus tree.


http://www.madonnainn.com/index.php
http://www.sfmotelcapri.com/
http://www.parks.ca.gov/
http://bigsurcalifornia.org/
http://www.salvationmountain.us/

Ellen Jo Roberts lives in a historic brick bungalow in Clarkdale Arizona, with Bike Daddy Chad, 2 small dogs, a cat, and a collection of vintage Volkswagens, none of which have cruise control, air conditioning or satellite radio.
Read all about it at ellenjo.com