Forty years ago, a drifter came to believe he was called to tell the world, “God is love.” For the first quarter century, Leonard Knight experienced failure after failure as he attempted to fulfill the calling “his” way. Yet, before his very eyes, Knight found himself stripped of everything and separated from everyone. Giving up the little he had left, Knight humbly stepped out in faith and turned his life and his dreams over to God.

In 1984, with one broken down truck and one failed quest to launch a homemade 200 foot tall hot air balloon over the sea, Knight found himself stranded on portion of a former Marine training base near the town of Niland, Calif., next to the Salton Sea. The balloon was to reflect the message of holy forgiveness he had come to embrace after many years as a carouser. Instead, Knight decided to dedicate a small cement plaque on the side of a hill to commemorate the place and then head back to his home in the east. That small plaque turned into more than 30 years of devotion to the message and the result that is Salvation Mountain.

Salvation Mountain is a literal man-made mountain Knight built near California’s Salton Sea. The small monument made of dirt and cement quickly evolved into a sprawling adobe and hay-bale complex; structural components such as telephone poles, tires, and car windows grew from the earth, and art cars and sculptures crept across the desert landscape. Leonard plastered everything in a signature patchwork of stripes and color blocks, pouring over half a million gallons of donated latex paint onto his creation.

During his many years living out on the mountain, Knight accumulated no belongings and survived in the back of a broken down fire truck that he covered in paint and scripture. He built, he ate, he gave tours, he bathed, and he slept. Nothing more. For 28 years he lived this way, the simple life of a dreamer, working tirelessly on his creation. Knight worked outside society’s concept of time; one day at a time, slowly, meticulously, never parting from his goal. The sole purpose of his decades of work was to spread the message that “God is Love.” He shared this with those who came to the mountain, giving personal tours to every single person who arrived during waking hours. Knight was not known especially well by the world’s standard, but those who visited him at the mountain immediately felt overwhelmed by his love and kindness. He even made a small cameo in the 2007 film “Into the Wild” along side actors and actresses such as Emile Hirsch, Kristen Stewart, and Vince Vaughn.

Many organizations and corporations have tried taking Knight's mountain away from him, to either destroy or use for for their own capitalistic schemes. The attempts have always failed; the land belonged to Knight and he never considered selling out. At age 79, even as his hearing, vision, and body deteriorated, Leonard would not leave. Still residing in the back of his fire truck, Knight lived off a $600 a month social security check and the meager donations given by visitors. His only request was that they take pictures and spread the message of love.

Before and still after his death, Knight was considered as close to a pure soul as a human can be. Knight is an exceptionally brilliant artist in that he began and ended with no artistic training and he created with no outside influence. He did not mean to be an “artist,” yet he became one, and beauty bloomed wherever his footfalls landed. Recognized by congress as a “national treasure,” Salvation Mountain is one of the most important examples of Outsider Art in the world.

Leonard Knight died surrounded by friends and family on February 10, 2014, in El Cajon, Calif. Before he left the mountain, Knight estimated that he used more than 500,000 gallons of paint on Salvation Mountain. His last hope, he told visitors, was that his creation would be preserved as a message for future generations. During his final days, Knight, even in his pitiful condition and in the confinement of a nursing home, lifted many hearts as he told a close friend, “All of my dreams have come true -- more than I can possibly ask for." Today, Salvation Mountain is maintained by a small, but extremely dedicated group of people who share Knight's desire to spread love and beauty to as many people as they can. However, one individual in particular has done an exceptional job in the preservation of the mountain.

“Photographer Aaron Huey lent a hand, and a dozen hay bales later he experienced his own epiphany… through a photographer’s calling, a testament survives, preserving the spirit of the man who built it,” VQR (Virginia Quarterly Review).

Aaron Huey, a contemporary photographer based in Seattle, Wash., recently produced a volume of images and artifacts collected over five years of documenting Salvation Mountain. This book, “Where the Heaven Flowers Grow,” is a collection of images made of Leonard’s last years working on the Mountain, of the last surfaces he painted before they were covered by the work of volunteers after his death, and of artifacts from Leonard’s life. You may purchase the book at http://outsiderbooks.com/project/where-heaven-flowers-grow/. For his photography of Leonard Knight and Salvation Mountain, Huey was awarded the VQR prize for photography in 2013. Knight's legacy lives on through his art and passion to reach out to the world in kindness, beauty, and love.