Go West, Young Man

GO WEST AND GROW UP THE COUNTRY

Plans for a Utah Art Trip— The Spiral Jetty and the Sun Tunnels

I know it would be customary to start this blog post begging forgiveness for being away for a few weeks, offering excuses, promising change, but to be honest, I’m too excited about what’s next to bore you with all of that. 

Instead, I’m going to dive straight into what I’m here to talk about today— Land Art. Specifically, Land Art in Utah. Since I’ve written, I’ve moved back to America (it’s one of the reasons that it’s been a few weeks since you’ve seen me). I’m only going to be here for a few months before I head back to the UK, but while I’m here, I’m heading out west.

Like a lot of people who live on the East Coast, West isn’t a place I’ve been much. I spent a week skiing in Colorado when I was younger and a few years ago, I spent a weekend in California, but that’s been the extent of my exploration. Now that my time living in America is slowly dwindling away, it has struck me as a missed opportunity. There’s so much beauty out there that’s about to become considerable less accessible for me.

So when my brother and his girlfriend asked me if I wanted to go spend a week with them skiing in Utah, I jumped at the chance. While skiing is a great motivator in and of itself, from the minute they said Utah, I had an alliterative motive in mind, an extra reason for saying yes. 

Nancy Holt, Sunlight in Sun Tunnels, 1976. Composite inkjet print on archival rag paper. 127.3 x 156.2 cm.

(30 photographs of sunlight and shadow in one tunnel photographed every half hour from 6.30am to 9.00pm on 14 July 1976). 

Courtesy Parafin Gallery.

Given the nature of this blog, that other reason shouldn’t be hard to guess— art. Specifically, Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels and Robert Smithson’s The Spiral Jetty.  Perhaps this is just me, but from the second I read Utah in my brother’s email, those two pieces of Land Art sprung to mind. It didn’t hurt, of course, that the email came as I was sitting in the library working on a masters thesis in which both artists featured prominently...

It’s an opportunity that is frankly just too good to miss, and they’re both works of art that have come to mean a lot of me. During my master’s degree, I ended up writing about Smithson so frequently that I gained myself the title of the Smithson Girl (there’s always one, isn’t there?). And when my interest in Smithson lead me to my thesis topic, I fell in love all over again with Holt. While her work often can be left in the shadow of Smithson’s, it was actually reading her words while researching my thesis that gave me an ache to actually go into the desert.

She, like me, was raised on the East Coast and didn’t visit the west until 1968 when she was in her mid-twenties. Location scouting with Smithson and Michael Heizer, the experience of the desert was a significant spiritual experience for her. She recalled her feelings after landing in the Las Vegas airport (then in the middle of nowhere) saying that she ‘had an overwhelming experience of my inner landscape and outer landscape being identical. It lasted for days. I couldn’t sleep.’ (Meyer. “Nancy Holt interview with James Meyer.” Nancy Holt: Sightlines. Williams and Lee, eds. Berkeley, CA: U of California, 2011. p 222)

She elaborated, saying that she ’was struck by the awareness of being an individual in the vastness of space... it was like being the first person on the planet to walk on this particular piece of earth at this moment. That sensation stirred up thought of the astronauts walking on the Moon for the first time.’ I mean, how can you resist, right?

Robert Smithson, The Spiral Jetty.

There’s a lot to say about each of these pieces of art, and frankly, I could go on forever— I have 17,000 words of thesis to prove it. They’re both these incredible uncanny sites, seeming to exist completely out of time, both ancient and new. I won’t drone on too long. Suffice it to say that now, having merely read about them for so long, having looked at every photograph I can get my hands on, I’m answering their siren call.

In just a few weeks, I’m packing a bag and heading out into the desert, to see the vast, alien landscape for myself. It’s going to be a three day trek, all things told. The first day, I’ll drive from Park City to Wendover, Utah, where I’ll stay over night. I’m hoping to get up the next morning in time to get to the Sun Tunnels for sunrise (if you’re going, might as well do it properly, right?). Then it’s a trek to through the desert to near the Spiral Jetty. The last day, I’ll visit the Jetty itself then drive back down to Salt Lake.

My parents are slightly worried that I’m going to die out there on the desolate roads, but I’ve been googling and that’s really the only thing you need to guarantee safety, right? If I’ve seen a 3 minute youtube clip of someone driving down the road once, how could I possibly get lost? Or run out of gas or have a mechanical failure? Or run into a flash flood? After all, google is the key to success. 

In all seriousness, I’ve written down my directions, ordered maps, made a packing list for emergency supplies, and I’m planning on bringing as much water as I can fit in the back of my rental car. More importantly, I’ve also got my Dad’s old Nikon F ready and a bag full of 35mm film. February 12th can’t come fast enough.

Expect a full report forthwith. West, west, here I come.