The landmark Roy’s gas station and convenience store in Amboy, California, is hosting an art installation by a Swiss artist through at least the summer.
The installation is called “Golden Smile Salty Tears” in six bungalows in the Roy’s Motel part of the complex, using found objects. The artist, Severin Guelpa, explained on the installation’s website:
They are part of MATZA, an artistic project interested in territory and its natural resources as a space of political organization, a place of subsistence and collective construction.
Air, earth, fire and water are the four original elements, omnipresent here. They make up each object, deciding its appearance or qualities. Hot, cold, dry… liquid, volatile or rigid.
Amboy, white like salt, reminds us more than anything of the force of these elements and the fragility of the hopes they arouse.
Here is one of the art installations at Roy’s:
Longtime Route 66 aficionado and Roy’s caretaker Kevin Hansel, who met the artist, passed along this observation about Guelpa after talking to him:
He has traveled to New York and Washington appreciating the art. Traveling through the Mojave Preserve, he saw this amazing place and knew he would be back. As he said, “First you dream, then you think. It all comes from the heart. There is no logic. The work itself brings satisfaction.”
The art installation will be up until at least summer.
(Image of Roy’s in Amboy, California, by SP8254 via Flickr)