21 Hours at Lightning Field, New Mexico

What is a perfect day at Lightning Field? Let’s imagine…

• Showing up to the Dia office in Quemado, NM to discover that you are the only two people that will be staying at Lightning Field that night. You will not be sharing a cabin with four others.







• Not being asked to sign the registration form that promises you won’t be taking photographs.



• Arriving with weather so perfect and no mosquitoes that it is possible to take a nap on the back porch for over an hour.



• Walking around the entire perimeter (3.2 miles) without running into one rattlesnake but instead viewing plenty of cute rabbits and an antelope.







• A perfect vegetarian dinner all prepared in the refrigerator (albeit Mexican food) followed by storm clouds rolling in with lightning on the horizon.





• After singing the Lightning Field rain dance, the cloud cover rolls over the cabin and proceeds to produce lighting strike after lighting strike over the artwork in front of us.







• Creating successful sound recordings and video recreations with a flashlight, a burial, filling the best nesting box of the trip and reviewing them inside on the dining room table we are sharing with no one, while lightning continues to strike outside the window 3.5 hours after it rolled in.





• Ending the evening with a cup of hot tea, a shower with soft water (perfect for all hair types), no phone calls or internet access or updating the blog and a quiet night ahead promising plenty of sleep.

Dream on you say? The worst day of the trip followed by the best? Yes… dreams can come true proven once again.

singing to the lightning field gods while at work! christmas is in the air!

to be transformed into two "office supply" souvenir christmas ornaments

Eliasson and De Maria Comparison

Olafur Eliasson's Lava Room reminds me of De Maria's Earth Room in predictable and obvious ways. The one thing I appreciate about Eliasson's work though is the opportunity for the viewers to walk on the lava. Barred from doing so in De Maria's piece didn't produce desires to jump the fence (especially when seeing all the mold spores growing) but I would imagine the experience would be very different with the lava crunching under my feet.

Walter De Maria's "Earth Room"

Well there were a couple of surprises.... It was humid!! There were mold spores!! I loved how the dirt swooped up underneath the window panes. Apparently it is also watered about once a month but there are no signs of foot prints anywhere. Li and I were sneaking cell phone photos despite the fact that there were signs everywhere telling us not to. The man at the desk was disinterested in our presence and it wasn't difficult to take these images at all (unlike you and I nearly getting kicked out of the Wexner!). I wish they were of higher quality but that is what Dia is for I suppose.

[A few days later...] I found this on youtube... Same guy who obviously knew Li and I were taking photos but probably thought the i-phone camera wouldn't pose any threats. I would love to see him go out on the dirt with his 100' hose and it's too bad the video doesn't show that!