THE GALLETA MEADOWS SCULPTURESLocation: Borrego Springs, CA
Accessibility: Easy/Moderate Created: Over Many Years |
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From a faraway glance, the desert can appear to be a vast and barren wasteland. However, time has revealed that the desert is one of the most alive, vibrant, and intricate places on Earth. Home to numerous oddities, the deserts of California house creative and artistic works. These include Salvation Mountain, Hazel’s Volcanic Gardens, Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch, and Noah Purifoy’s Outdoor Desert Art Museum, among others. No stranger to artistic wonders, Borrego Springs, California is a humble patch of desert that has stemmed 130 metal sculptures over time.
Proud owner of the Galleta Meadows Estate in Borrego Springs, Dennis Avery toted a history of art appreciation. Avery became a patron of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Huntington Library art collections and the Performing Arts Council of the Los Angeles County Music Center. In 2008, Avery commissioned Perris Jurassic Park gallery welder Ricardo Breceda to create metal sculptures. Known as the “accidental artist”, Breceda has never had a formal art class. Years ago, his young daughter asked for a dinosaur for Christmas, following her experience with watching Jurassic Park 3. Breceda made her dreams come true by picking up some tools and sheet metal and creating his first work, a 20-feet-high and 45-feet-long T-Rex.
Welded on-site and covering 10-square-miles of open desert, the metal sculptures are modeled after different themes such as desert environment, prehistoric animals, and religion. From tigers to a scorpion, to dinosaurs, to a jeep, to farmworkers, to birds, to a Spanish Padre and his dog, each sculpture is hand-crafted and detailed.
Proud owner of the Galleta Meadows Estate in Borrego Springs, Dennis Avery toted a history of art appreciation. Avery became a patron of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Huntington Library art collections and the Performing Arts Council of the Los Angeles County Music Center. In 2008, Avery commissioned Perris Jurassic Park gallery welder Ricardo Breceda to create metal sculptures. Known as the “accidental artist”, Breceda has never had a formal art class. Years ago, his young daughter asked for a dinosaur for Christmas, following her experience with watching Jurassic Park 3. Breceda made her dreams come true by picking up some tools and sheet metal and creating his first work, a 20-feet-high and 45-feet-long T-Rex.
Welded on-site and covering 10-square-miles of open desert, the metal sculptures are modeled after different themes such as desert environment, prehistoric animals, and religion. From tigers to a scorpion, to dinosaurs, to a jeep, to farmworkers, to birds, to a Spanish Padre and his dog, each sculpture is hand-crafted and detailed.
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Sadly, Dennis Avery passed away in 2012. An advocate for art is both fun and a learning experience, he once said, “I’ve had a long life; I see these old animals and I feel young compared to them." Today, Galleta Meadows Metal Sculptures are open to the public for those who wish to see a 350-foot-long sea dragon that gives the illusion of snaking into and over the top of the desert sand. Breceda continues to create magic from metal, as the welder currently has an art studio in Aguanga, California. Join us as we go on a scavenger hunt through the desert at Galleta Meadows to see as many of these miraculous metal sculptures as we can.
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