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On most days, human feet dangle peacefully over the edges of the giant bird nests at The Big Sur Spirit Garden, a place that almost certainly would fit comfortably into the magical imaginations of, say, Lewis Carroll or Madeleine L’Engle.
In this case, the imagination belongs to Jayson Fann, the 36-year-old Renaissance man and creator of the International Arts Festival at Esalen Institute. He used his artistic soul, about $5,000 of seed money, and the charitable sweat of good friends to create the arts and cultural center tucked between the Santa Lucia Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, about 30 miles south of Carmel on Highway 1.
Those “Spirit Nests,” as he calls them, also are Fann’s creation, shaped from deadwood that he has twisted and tangled into cocoon-like sanctuaries. Locals and tourists climb the hand-made, 10-foot ladders and snuggle into the pillows and cushions they find up there to nap, cogitate, or simply enjoy the solitude and fresh ocean air.
The Big Sur Spirit Garden is one of those places found in a sweet dream, with its soothing, ever-evolving gallery of artwork: carvings, ceramics, metal crafting, mosaics, paintings, sculptures, plants (Fann will shape living trees into “Spirit Nests”), and anything else the mind can conceive, from every corner of the world. It also features Big Sur artists.
“We’re constantly rotating and changing our exhibits. This one here is by Sally Russell, a Carmel artist,” he says, touching a series of ceramic totems in a tiny courtyard. “This, over here, is Haitian metal work. Earlier this year, some natives of Zimbabwe came to The Spirit Garden. They created those stone carvings right here on the site.”
A stairway of hand-built terraces leads to a second level of The Spirit Garden, where murals painted by children, their parents, and visiting artists surround a small stage, which extends to a round platform that doubles as a dance floor.
In the three years since The Spirit Garden’s inception, the area has showcased some of the most eclectic musicians in the business — many of them world famous. In one month, the lineup included Spanish flamenco dancer Virginia Iglesias; hip hop/jazz/soul artists Alex Lee and Le Vice; urban folk/jazz musician K.J. Denhert; Afro-Brazilian master drummer and Capoeira martial artist Robson Oliveira Nascimento; Bongo Love, an Afrocoustics group from Zimbabwe; Nonosina, a Polynesian drumming and dance company; and Louisiana Creole and Zydeco artist Cedric Watson. Last summer, one of the crowned queens of Ghana did a one-woman show on Fann’s stage.
In the spirit of The Spirit Garden, every artist and musician featured also teaches a class in his or her specialty to the public, often to children.
Fann generally charges $10 to $15 per ticket — all of which goes to the performers, who crash on the sofas and bunk beds in the little house he rents a few hundred yards from the venue (“I can accommodate 10,” he says proudly) — and often features two or more acts per show. Though his cultural center is a business, he regularly holds fundraisers for worthy organizations like the Monterey County Rape Crisis Center or a needy family or group.
The generosity stems from a childhood that began in Omaha, Neb., where Fann says, “I never really fit into any box. I wore long braids and thought I was an Indian.” At age 13, he attended the 100th anniversary of The Battle of Wounded Knee in South Dakota, where, in 1890, the Seventh Cavalry of the U.S. Army surrounded and slaughtered about 300 Lakota Sioux Indians. For the young teenager, it was a spiritual awakening that eventually led him to Africa (where he became a friend and protégé of famed African drummer Babatunde Olatunji) and virtually every other corner of the world. He has environmental projects in foreign countries — for example, ridding Ghana’s beaches of plastic.
Fann’s philanthropic heart attracts diverse, good-hearted people, who volunteer as employees at The Spirit Garden simply because they love being there. Persay Bryant, retired at 75, is a self-described dancer, actor, and artist who says he found his way to Big Sur because, “I had a demon on me who wanted to take my blood, my energy, make a sissy out of me, make me kneel to him. But I decided not to give him that permission.”
After working 27 years at Lucia Lodge in Big Sur, he met Fann and decided The Spirit Garden was where he needed to be. “It’s a very spiritual place. It’s about goodness,” he says. “Good energy.”
For Fann, a single father of two boys (Noah, 7, and Gabriel, 12), the spirituality is what his life, his philanthropy, and his career choices have been all about.
“I have a responsibility to myself and to this life to do whatever I can to make the world a better place and try to bring more love, more creativity, and more intelligence, I guess, to whatever it is that I’m going to do.”
