Spotlight On: La Cueva de Luz
Some places feel like they were created for more than what you see at first glance. Well… I found one of those spots in Bishop recently. Tucked into West Line Street is a glowing and unexpected refuge where art, light, and community quietly come together. It’s not just a gallery, but something shaped by creativity and the power of a shared space. We need more spaces like this.
As part of our ongoing series, we are interviewing people of interest in the area who are having a positive impact on our community.
This time, we reached out to Allen Berry, the artist and visionary behind La Cueva de Luz, to learn how a collection of found metal, illuminated by hand, grew into a modern-day cave of light and connection.
What is La Cueva de Luz, and how would you describe the business to someone hearing about it for the first time?
Conceptually as well as physically, La Cueva de Luz (“The Cave of Light”) consists of two things. First, it is the place where, by God’s grace—or at least my great fortune—I am able to house and display to the public what I call the Museum of Desert Lights, which consists of over 70 illuminated sculptures, or “lights,” I have made from old pieces of discarded metal I have found on the lands around Bishop. La Cueva’s other purpose is to be a tranquil and interesting venue for small community gatherings and entertainment, whether those I host or those created and hosted by others. There is no admission fee to see the museum, but donations are accepted, as I receive no outside funding.
What inspired you to start La Cueva de Luz, and how did the idea take shape?
Necessity, as they say—and adversity, I would add—is the mother of invention. Like most amateur artists, my home in the Meadowcreek subdivision in Bishop was full of my “art,” my “lights,” which I had been making for the previous 15 years or so. I had used those light sculptures to turn the house into an illuminated “cave” of sorts. An unfortunate divorce forced the sale of the house, and so I needed a place—besides my storage unit—to put all the lights.
Right around that time, the space at 174 West Line Street in Bishop became available, and as soon as I saw it, I knew it was the perfect spot not only to display the lights, but to use them as the “anchor” for various other endeavors, commercial and otherwise. Again, I felt like God was looking out for me by bringing my lights and that space together, allowing me to create La Cueva de Luz and display the Museum of Desert Lights.
La Cueva de Luz is described as a modern “cave” of refuge and gathering. What does the idea of a cave mean to you personally?
Personally, and like probably lots of people, caves have always intrigued me as hidden, often secret places that, although a bit frightening at first, nevertheless provide us comfort and a sense of safety and security. That is likely why early humans found shelter in caves: the world was a very scary place and so caves gave us a place where we felt in control, they were our own domain. And it is with those thoughts in mind that I vegan to envision La Cueva de Luz as a place that could provide the community with a similar sense of refuge from the troubles of the world. For, although life is relatively mellow in these parts, I nevertheless feel there is a backdrop of tension and anxiety that is deleteriously affecting our country, no matter where we live; and so I want La Cueva to be a peaceful place of shelter from the storms of the world.
You reference prehistoric cave art at places like Lascaux and Altamira. How did those early human expressions influence your vision for this place?
Once I realized I was creating what would amount to a “cave” to display my lights, I began to recall things I associated with caves. Besides memories of exploring them in the rocks of Yosemite Valley when I was a boy long ago, most notably was a reproduction of the famous horse painting from the caves of Lascaux, France, which my parents brought home after visiting in the early 1960s (before it was closed to the public).
This recollection prompted me to more closely consider and appreciate that caves are where humans first expressed our innate need to create “art,” for whatever reason that may be. Since La Cueva is full of my illuminated sculptures—my “art”—which I felt some need to create, I thought it would be interesting to literally illustrate that mysterious bit of human history in La Cueva de Luz by installing some prime examples of cave art: paintings of the Lascaux horse and a buffalo from the Altamira caves in Spain.
The Museum of Desert Lights features more than seventy illuminated sculptures. How did this collection begin?
The collection of illuminated sculptures that comprises the Museum of Desert Lights began over a couple of days about 15 years ago when, while exploring one of the large and old refuse sites (aka dumps) on LADWP land near Bishop, my eye was drawn to an interesting piece of metal that had been used for target practice by someone with a .22 rifle, leaving several randomly spaced holes in the metal.
The rectangular, box-like piece was still in good shape, had some of its original white paint on it, but was otherwise covered with a beautiful reddish-orange patina acquired from many years lying out in the sand and arid climate of the Owens Valley. I took the piece of metal home and glued what are called “jellybeans”—little blobby pieces of colored glass—into the bullet holes (happily the same caliber), then put a light bulb in the box, which illuminated the colored jellybeans from the inside. Voilà! Eureka! I had just made the light now called La Primera Luce—The First Light.
Having seen that I could make an interesting light out of an old, abandoned piece of metal, I began wandering the old dumps—both formal and random—out in the sagebrush, looking for more such pieces of metal from which to make more illuminated sculptures. In the process, I discovered that painted tracing paper made a perfect medium for capturing the light emanating from the various sizes and types of holes in the metal. Over the years, these efforts resulted in the 76 or so illuminated sculptures in the Museum of Desert Lights.
Lastly, how can people find you, and what are your hours?
La Cueva de Luz and the Museum of Desert Lights are located at 174 West Line Street in Bishop, between the Blue Lupine health goods store and The Dance Studio, not far—around the corner—from C-5 Studios on South Warren Street. Currently, it is open Thursday through Monday from 2 PM to 8 PM, but stay tuned, as I will likely be adjusting those hours as we move into 2026.
My website is lacuevadeluz.com, and Instagram is @lacuevadeluzbishop. The phone number is 760-920-5944.
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