Driving past gulches, canyons, and flowers that line the side of Route 84 we wait at mile marker according to secret instructions. We wait at the wrong mile marker. First rule of a road trip: Be prepared to get lost. I prefer the more eloquent words of Thoreau: I am prepared for strange things. After that directional challenge, we find the right road and climb five miles of rough dirt up Chupinas Mesa to meet Charles Ross, the creator of Star Axis. We glimpse a pyramid extending through a cross section of the mesa. Cut into the mountain of sandstone is this massive earth/star sculpture. Star Axis refers to its precise alignment with the earth’s axis which now points toward the north star, Polaris. Conceived in 1971, Ross has been building the structure since 1977. He told us he felt he had to carve into the land to get to the sky. The artist is gracious and welcoming in jeans and a cowboy hat, as he gives us a tour of each section of the sculpture and around the construction crew. We are not allowed to take photos. The first stop is the Solar Pyramid and the Star Tunnel. Eleven stories high and comprised of 166 stairs in a steep passageway one can walk through layers of time, making visible the 26,000 year cycle of precession—Earth’s shifting alignment with the stars. As we walk I ask Ross how he became a sculptor after studying math and physics. He told me he had to fill his Liberal Arts requirement and thought sculpture would be the easiest one to pass. He ended up spending hours and hours in the studio. Sculpture, he says, combines the theoretical and abstract with the hands on work. It satisfied both impulses for him. The next part of the structure is the Equatorial Chamber located at the entrance. Here one can see the stars that pass above the Equator composed of three kinds of rock: volcanic, pink and radiant red granite, and sandstone. In designing it, he thought about the relationship between the sky and architecture and the Egyptians, human scale and time. Walking uphill and around, we enter inside the Hour Chamber. Framed in the shape of an equilateral triangle one views the stars seated on a bench as the stars take an hour to cross the sky. (Some mornings Ross has to kick the tumbleweeds out of this space). As we sit, he offers no guidance on what one’s experience of the space should be. “Art is what it is.” He resolutely believes that there are things we know on a cellular level. That within each of us there is a memory—of the stars. Listening to him, made me believe it too.
The scale of his effort and the geometry (there are no right angles) of the sculpture is impressive. The site is funded by grants and mostly private donations. Most of the materials are donated. But we are reminded that 80% of creating large earthworks projects is dedicated to raising money. Ross hopes to complete the sculpture and be open to the public in five years. I appreciated seeing the structure’s design and construction during the day but I can’t wait to see its poetry revealed during the night sky. Hours later, we thank Ross and depart from Star Axis. I turn to watch him walk back up the hill to the construction site.
(Additional photos: Giza Pyramids / en.wikipedia.org; Étienne-Louis Boullée (1728-1799) visionary French neoclassical architect / en.wikipedia.org)
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