Hello all,

The Washington janitor referred to in the previous
message is James Hampton, and his work is "The Throne
of the Third Heaven of the Nation's Millenium General
Assembly".

http://www.geocities.com/ctesibos/hampton/throne.html

If you're ever at the Smithsonian, check it out, as it
is amazing.

More to the point, there is an ever-growing art
history-related literature on visionary 'art'
environments that I think would be very relevant to
your situation (including some about works by Italian
immigrants like Rodia). Two obvious starting points
are the book Gardens of Revelation by John Beardsley
and the archives of the magazine Raw Vision. I'm
curious as to how your work progresses, particularly
as it could be relevant to NRHP issues here in the
States. Perhaps landscape archaeology could assist as
a tool in preservation efforts for such environments.

Good luck!

Ryan Gray


--- Lauren Cook <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> You're kidding, right?  Obviously, there's "hundreds
> of tons" of Grand
> Design there. Oral history won't get you much,
> unless he told someone why he
> did it.  And legal documents might not be
> particularly relevant, either. I'm
> sure that Van Gogh's alienists took a dim view of
> his work.
>
> If you know where he was from in Italy, you might be
> able to see
> similarities between his home landscape, and what he
> built in NSW.
>
> A couple of comparable things come to mind in terms
> of obsessive builders...
>
> 1) Simon Rodia Towers of Watts:
>
>
http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Watts_Towers.html
>
> http://www.arts.ufl.edu/art/rt_room/watts/tower.html
>
> http://www.trywatts.com/towers.htm
>
> 2) Mystery Hill ("America's Stonehenge")...
> apparently built by an Irish
> stonemason in the 19th century, now passed off as
> evidence of pre-Columbian
> settlement of the New World...
>
>
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_n2_v19/ai_20159539
>
> 3) I ran across something recently about a janitor
> in Washington, DC, who
> after his death was discovered to have built
> elaborate miniature buildings
> in a rented garage from tinfoil scraps (references
> to that one escape me,
> though).
>
> Good Luck
>
> LJ Cook
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Bobby
> Caillard
> Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 5:32 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Archaeoloty of a recluse
>
>
> I'm a 4th year archaeology student at Sydney uni.
> The research for my
> Honours thesis involves a site created by a
> psychologically damaged
> (highly likely paranoid schizophrenic)  Italian
> migrant who chose to
> live as a recluse on a steep, rocky hillside on the
> outskirts of
> Griffith, NSW, between the mid 1920s and 1942 (when
> he was temporarily
> interned as an enemy alien).  Taking advantage of
> natural features in
> the landscape and moving hundreds of tons of stone
> and earth, Valeri
> Ricetti single handedly created a complex of
> dwellings, terraced
> gardens, water cisterns, dry stone walling and
> linking bridges,
> stairways and paths that stretch across more than a
> kilometer of the
> hill side.
> My aim is to determine whether there was a visionary
> grand design
> underlying this large scale reshaping of the natural
> environment.  Where
> scant oral histories and government records allude
> to a homophobic,
> mentally deficient eccentric, I believe the
> archaeological record can
> demonstrate a vastly contrasting insight to this
> man's character and
> behaviour.
> I guess the context of my research will be based on
> landscape
> archaeology and the interpretation of what has been
> expressed through
> this particular landscape.  I was wondering if
> anyone knew of any
> similar or parallel studies.
> Regards, Bobby Caillard
>




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