Andrew Bablo’s “Yucca Fountain”

December 11, 2019

Montserrat alum Andrew Bablo (’07) has an exciting show up out west. “Yucca Fountain” is a gallery restoration of a 1950s soda fountain that Andrew and his artistic partner Helen Popinchalk worked on together. Using drawings, documents, and remnants the original business, the pair have recreated an atomic-era experience inside the Campus Commons Gallery at the University of Northern Colorado.

One side of the gallery is a recreation of a nighttime desert landscape, all the way down to the gravel underfoot. The other half is the Yucca Fountain itself, which on its opening reception served as a functioning diner with food sold at 1950s prices. All of the proceeds from food sales were subsequently donated to the Bear Pantry at UNC, a service for food insecure students.

Yucca Fountain remains on show at UNC until March 14th, and while it won’t be serving food anymore, it remains a nostalgic sensory experience. For those too far away to see the gallery for themselves, UNC has put out a video capturing the opening: 

from University of Northern Colorado on Vimeo.

For more on Yucca Fountain itself, see their Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/yucca_fountain/