Land Arts of the American West

I vaguely remember learning about the Land Arts of the American West when I first visited Spiral Jetty in 2005. From their About page:

"Land Arts of the American West is an ongoing experiment in an interdisciplinary model for an Arts pedagogy based in place. The Land Arts program provides students with direct, physical engagement with a full range of human interventions in the landscape, from pre contact Native America architecture, pictographs and petrogylphs to contemporary Earthworks, federal infrastructure, and the constructions of the US Military. Land art includes gestures both grand and small, directing our attention from potsherd, cigarette butt, and track in the sand to human settlements, monumental artworks, and military/industrial projects such as hydroelectric dams and decommissioned airfields."

They just published a book through University of Texas Press which I promptly put on Interlibrary Loan.

Some relevant projects from their website which draw a correlation between what Nancy and I did at each earthwork follow:











While our work is more ephemeral in nature, these artists created earthworks in response to some of the same sites we saw. The most often asked question when discussing our project is "When are you going to make your own earthwork?" Aside from this diorama Hannah and I are constructing, I have not had an interest in moving earth around as I am still more interested in borrowing from the pre-existing artwork and creating something from it. We'll see... but in the meantime, it was fascinating to find these works as another example of a contemporary art form inspired by Land Art.

Art of the Great Eastern Sun: Chogyam Trungpa Style

I wanted to post this passage Mark read to us the day we visited Chinati. Certain aspects of our project were indeed met with trepidation. I was very nervous the week leading up to our departure yet once we were on our way, I questioned why I possibly could have doubted. Working with Nancy has allowed me to be a little fearless, to approach the way I create art from a very new perspective, and not stop to question but just BE. Mark wrote, "Thank you for expressing what needs to be expressed" as the subject line when he typed this passage and emailed it to me. Thank you Mark for your support and believing in all those ideas including the Jonald Dudd pool jump that hasn't quite happened.



[It's almost the size of these dumpster pools in NYC. I'll avoid mentioning the potential filth factor with both of them.]

Art of the Great Eastern Sun. “The three principles of Great, East, and Sun have specific meanings. Great means having some kind of strength, energy, and power. That is, we are not fearful or regretful in presenting our expressions or our works of art—or for that matter, in our way of being. That power is absolutely fearless. If we were cowardly, we would have a problem in trying to handle an object, or even thinking of touching it or arranging it, much less in arranging our life or our world. We would be afraid to do any of that. So the absence of that fear is fearlessness, which develops out of delight. We are so delighted that we spontaneously develop that kind of strength and energy. Then we can move freely around our world without trying to change it particularly, but just expressing what needs to be expressed or uncovering what needs to be uncovered by means of our art.”—Chogyam Trungpa, The Essential Chogyam Trungpa.

McDonald Observatory & Rebecca Solnit's "Excavating the Sky"

This entry is for the evening we spent at McDonald Observatory in Ft. Davis, Texas watching the International Space Station fly by at 18,000 MPH, or perhaps for the meteorite Nancy saw but Mark and I missed that illuminated half the sky, or for the "twinkling" of the airplanes, or for Jupiter and it's four moons that I could have cupped in my palm they were so diminutive in the microscope. Maybe it's for Saturn and it's barely visible rings or for staying later than 90% of the crowd to watch the waning moon rise. Mainly it's for the memory of seeing a night sky so unbelievably clear that I haven't witnessed since lying in the middle of Excelsior Road at midnight on Stewart Island, New Zealand looking at the Southern Cross.

Rebecca Solnit is one of my favorite authors who writes about the Western landscape, the influences of photography, and Richard Misrach who had a profound impact on me my first semester of graduate school. Here are two of his photographs: Jupiter at Massacre Lake and Polaris Over Lake Meade and below a few highlights from Solnit's "Excavating the Sky."



"Stars are made of flaming gases, but constellations are made of stories. Stars are the things themselves, constellations the way we connect those things to each other and ourselves through words, names, stories. Every culture has read constellations into the night sky, perhaps because we remember things and beings by their names; and calling people, places, things by name is how we establish a relationship to them at best, claim them as property at worst. Constellations connect the stars to each other, but in a way that no longer speaks of stars but of animals, goddesses and heroes. Constellations are an essential metaphorical construct - or one might say that metaphor is an art of making constellations, of constellating."

"Seven stars slightly west of due north conjoined make something wholly different than stars, a dipper and the dipper makes the sky navigable - but it also makes the sky offer up a metaphysical drink and a recognizable earthly object. Runaway slaves called the constellation "the drinking gourd" and followed it north. Farther west, the Zuni also saw it as a drinking gourd, but the Hopi saw it as a 'star thrower,' the Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone as a rabbit net, the Chumash as seven boys who became wild geese, the Isleta Pueblo as a cradle, and the Tohono O'odham as a cactus-gathering hook. The same stars make up entirely different maps."



"Clouds drift, stars rotate, and sometimes the shortest distance between two places leaves out the most important sites."

"The Necessity of Empty Spaces"

"Empty: unoccupied, or uninhabited; unfrequented. We wear our language as blindly as our own faces. Only from the outside can we look into them. Empty is one of those words that reveals unspoken attitudes. Lacking people, it means. No humans equals nothing."

"... the deepest most satisfying sense of place comes from the keenest appreciation of its multifold distinctions. When the uniqueness of a place sings to us like a melody, then we will know, at last, what it means to be at home."

"The river was not always tame. In losing its roar, it has lost its wildness, and in losing its wildness, it has become less fearsome, and in losing its fearsomeness, it has grown less awesome. Its power survives, although pent up. One day the river will conquer the dam and be free, and wild, and fearsome again. It will prevail. But its power now lies hidden, and therefore unaccounted. We have temporarily discounted it and so hidden from ourselves its real nature. What we have done to the river, we have done to the earth. In subduing it, we have tamed our fears. But it is still a wild world, and in the wilderness there is nothing more dangerous than being unafraid."

Paul Gruchow, The Necessity of Empty Places, 1988

and speaking of fear... I learned today that we are going to "rattlesnake infested brushland" when visiting Lightning Field.


From Kenneth Baker's The Lightning Field:

"[Aby] Warburg had traveled to New Mexico in 1896, searching for modern vestiges of the serpent cult he had already traced from pagan antiquity through Christian art. He took great trouble to observe the masked dances that Native Americans in New Mexico performed to bring rain. Integral to the dances were live rattlesnakes: tangible, animate symbols of lighting."

I now propose to add a new verse to the Lightning Dance that features no rattlesnake sightings. Por favor!!

from the book "ZEN MIND, BEGINNER'S MIND", shunryu suzuki

People who know the state of emptiness will always be able to dissolve their problems by constancy.

The message for us today is "Cultivate your own spirit." It means not to go seeking ofr something outside of yourself. This is a very important point, and it is the only way to practice Zen. Of course, studying scriptures of reciting the sutra or sitting is Zen; each of these activities should be Zen. But if your effort or practice does not have the right orientation, it will not work at all Not only will it not work, but it may spoil your pure nature. Then the more you know about Zen, the more you will become spoiled. Your mind will be filled with rubbish; your mind will be stainded. It is quite usual for us to gather pieces of information from various sources, thinking in this way to increase our knowledge. Acutally, following this way we end up not knowing anything at all. Our understanding of Buddhism should not be just gathering many piees of information, seeking to gain knowledge. Instead of gathering knowledge, you should clear your mind. If your mind is clear, true knowledge is already yours. When you listen to our teaching with a pure, clear mind, you can accept it as if you were hearing something which you already knew. This is called emptiness, or omnipotent self, or knowing everything. when you know everything, you are like a dark sky. Sometimes a flashing will come through the dark sky. After it passes, you forget all about it and there is nothing left but the dark sky. The sky is never surprised when all of a sudden a thunderbolt breaks through. And when the lighning does flash, a wonderful sight may be seen. When we have emptiness we are always prepared for watching the flashing. In China, Rozan is famous for its misty scenery. I have not been to China yet, but there must be beautiful mountains there. And to see the white clouds or mist come and go through the mountains must be a very wonderful sight. Although it is wonderful, a Chinese poem says, "Rozan is famous for its misty, rainy days, and the great river Sekko for its tide, coming and going. That is all." That is all, but it is splendid. This is how we appreciate things.

So you should accept knowledge as if you were hearing something you already knew. But this does not mean to receive various pieces of information merely as an echo of your own opinions. It means that you should not be surprised at whatever you see or hear. If you receive things just as an echo of yourself, you do not really see them, you do not fully accept them as they are. So when we say, "Rozan is famous for its misty, rainy days," it does not mean to appreciate this sight by recollecting some scenery we have seen before: "It is not so wonderful. I have seen that sight before." Or "I have painted much more beautiful paintings! Rozan is nothing!" This is not our way. If you are ready to accept thins as they are, you will receive them as old friends, even though you appreciate them with new feelings.

And we should not hoard knowledge, we should be free from our knowledge. If you collect various pieces of knowledge, as a collection it may be very good, but this is not our way. We should not try to surprise people by our wonderful treasures. We should not be interested in something special. If you want to appreciate something fully, you should forget yourself. You should accept it like lightning flashing in the utter darkness of the sky.

Sometimes we think it is impossible for us to understand something unfamiliar, but actually there is nothing that is unfamiliar to us. Some people may say, "It is almost impossible to understand Buddhism because our cultural background is so different. How can we understand Oriental thought?" Of course Buddhism cannot be separated from its cultural background; this is true. But if a Japanese Buddhist comes to the United States, he is no longer a Japanese. I am living in your cultural background. I am eating nearly the same food as you eat, and I am communicating with you in your language. Even though you do not understand me completely, I want to understand you.

Species of Spaces and Other Pieces

This book looks worthy of reading regarding our project.