SoCal's Best Outdoor Folk Art

This 40-foot-tall bluefin tuna sculpture by Carl Cheng is made from stainless steel and filled with all kinds of nautical products including hooks, fishing reels, buoys, and ropes - to name a few. Apparently the sculpture also has a solar-powered video eye that displays each person's image inside the fish on a video screen. We couldn’t get this feature to work but maybe you'll have better luck.

The world-famous Watts Towers, as the well-known story goes, were built by Italian immigrant Simon Rodia with simple hand tools and raw determination— merely because he “wanted to do something big.” He succeeded. These mosaic-adorned steel structures are indeed a sight to behold, so it’s a pity that more So Cal locals haven’t visited out of apprehension about the infamous ‘hood. We say simply exercise so...

Over sixteen years in the making, Cheri Pann and Gonzalo Duran's Mosaic Tile House in Venice is a multicolored, multi-media folk art masterpiece. Apart from ceramic and glass tiles, all manner of found objects including tire rims, pot lids, and metal pipes have been used to adorn this magnificent abode.

Made out of 1,000 pounds of airplane scrap metal this sculpture is perched in front of The Museum of Contemporary Art. The unwieldy work of art is placed upon a small pedestal which looks disturbingly perilous. More disturbing is the fact that millions of people fly every day in machines made of these broken parts but somehow usually make it to their destination none the wiser.

A different twist on a piece of nostalgia and one of the best DIY repurposing jobs ever. It's as if Bob's long gone Big Boy was raising an arm from the grave to serve up one final double-decker.

Some grandmas spend their golden years baking cookies and knitting sweaters. Grandma Prisbey, on the other hand, built a village complete with wishing wells, colorful pathways, and whimsical sculptures, all using found objects—especially bottles. Lots and lots of bottles. Not to mention more than a few creepy doll heads. Check it out.

Come for the tacos, stay for the folk art! Tio’s Tacos restaurant owner Martin Sanchez flexes his artistic muscles by transforming a humble Mexican eatery into a fanciful folk art paradise made of discarded materials. Cherubs cavort with robots and other strange figures amidst a garden of fountains and faux fauna. Definitely worth a day trip out.

In 2000, Elmer Long welded a metal tree bedecked with colored class bottles to catch the California sunlight on Route 66. That tree turned into an enchanted forest made, not only of metal pipes and soda bottles, but an airplane propeller, a parking meter, a old cash register, and other everyday objects turned magical by Elmer’s welding wizardry.

— UPDATE: Some of the Robolights sculptures moved to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit—— Neon-colored metal and plastic monoliths make a sculpture garden of discarded electronic parts. Created by Kenny Irwin, Jr. and housed on his beautiful estate the scenes tell a story of a futuristic Christmas celebrated by giant robots and extraterrestrials. Try to plan your visit for the winter season when K...

This outdoor gallery of work by renowned sculptor Noah Purifoy is pure magic. The sprawling desert landscape serves as the perfect backdrop for the weathered, industrial aesthetic of Purifoy’s structural, found object masterpieces. Need we say more?

Ricardo Breceda was Mexican born, but raised in California. His inspiration to become an artist started with his daughter who at 6 years of age, requested a giant T-Rex after watching "Jurassic Park." So his first masterpiece turned out to be a 20-foot T-Rex. From there this self-taught artist has created his own land of wild creatures. You can view the sculptures on your own or send an email and request...

If you're in the mood for dystopian scenery and art, head out to East Jesus. Appropriately, it is not too far from the gigantic swampy lake called Salton Sea. Half commune and half refugee camp for struggling artists, East Jesus is an avant-garde place filled with eclectic pieces of art created by different people. See the artwork at no cost but they will gladly accept donations to continue their existen...

A big shoe tree makes use of an old gas station island out in the middle of nowhere. While there's no actual smoke shop here you could make it a smoke stop! Or just a place to get out and stretch you legs. Head a short distance east on 62 and you'll see the famous Rice Shoe Fence completing your tour of weird shoe structures in this area.

Old footwear may seem tasteless, but it's pretty classy compared to what it replaced. This shoe fence's precursor was a shoe tree which in turn was the replacement for the Underwear Tree. After the tree burned not once, but twice, this shoe fence became the new custom for passersby.