To Grandma's House We Go: Tressa Prisbrey’s Bottle Village and Art Tourism in the Golden State

In the mid-1950s, along California State Route 118 in Simi Valley, Tressa “Grandma” Prisbrey began building the Bottle Village: a multistructure complex made of cement mortar and glass bottles that she intended as a parallel to the then-newly established and nearby Disneyland, Marineland, and Knott’s Berry Farm theme parks. Prisbrey intentionally engaged a newly mobile demographic traversing southern California’s expanding roadways during the mid- to late twentieth century, including the artists Betye Saar and Alison Saar; members of the feminist alternative art space, the Woman's Building (in Los Angeles); and tourists seeking out interesting roadside attractions. This paper reconsiders how "roadside attractions" like the Bottle Village influenced a new generation of artists invested in placemaking. In addition, it considers the ways Bottle Village resonated with women in their 60s and 70s, many of whom traveled long distances to visit her and tour her site.