Site Report No. 7: Star Axis, NM

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)

Site Report No. 6: Las Vegas, NM

Interstate 25 north, Exit 343:  Las Vegas, NM (elevation 6,715).  Las Vegas, “City of the Meadows” became a boomtown with the arrival of The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe (AT&SF) Railroad in 1879.  The railroad district attracted notorious characters and was considered as wild as Tombstone or Dodge City.  Also in 1879 “Doc” Holliday arrived and bought a saloon.  After fatally shooting a man, he returned to Kansas the following year.  Fred Harvey, a pioneer in creating chains of railroad eating houses and hotels across the US, built La Castaneda Hotel here in 1898.  The Harvey Girls staffed the hotel’s dining room lived across the street in the Rawlings Building. And yes, I have seen the movie The Harvey Girls (1946) starring Judy Garland and Angela Lansbury.  The Hotel also became the site of the first Rough Rider Reunion in 1899.  The then Governor of New York, Theodore Roosevelt attended.

(Photo: Roosevelt Rough Rider Convention poster, www.lasvegasmuseum.org).

Site Report No. 5: Dwan Light Sanctuary, NM

Dwan Light Sanctuary is located on the campus of the United World College (founded by philanthropist Armand Hammer) in Montezuma a few miles north of Las Vegas.  In 1994 Virginia Dwan, a patron of artists and gallery owner in New York, wanted to create a place for quiet reflection for people of all beliefs and began a collaboration with solar spectrum artist, Charles Ross and architect Laban Wingert.  In the Sangre de Christo mountains, driving past several college buildings up a dirt road on a hill sits the Sanctuary.  Walking up a winding path you come upon a round structure surrounded by pine trees.  Inside a round chamber with sloping walls, Ross uses twenty-four large prisms in the apses and ceiling to track the seasonal angles of the sun.  Ross “calculated the building’s geometry and orientation to align the prisms to the sun, moon, and stars and to capture their light rays from sunrise to sunset.”  We waited to catch moments of sunlight in between the passing clouds of thunderstorms.  The rays moved along the walls and floors in brilliant play.  It was a place of enjoyment and it seemed as if one could spend hours there.

Site Report No. 4: Mesa Verde, CO

Leaving the rock colossus and red-orange mesas of Arizona the landscape shifts to brown-gray then to the deep viridian of Colorado.  There are layers and layers of tall, attentive trees as if you could stretch your hand out and run your fingers through the tops of them.  Mesa Verde, Spanish for green table.  Climbing 15 miles up, wrapping around this the monolith is a spectacular road.  At the end of that road there are some of the most awe inspiring archaeological sites.  The Ancient Puebloans lived in these cliffs for over 700 years.  We walked around some of the dwellings and climbed down a ladder into a kiva (round shaped room possibly used for religious purposes) below ground.

Site Report No. 3: Canyon de Chelly, AZ

I love to drive.  I love to drive off road more.  I love to drive my truck off road following my Navajo guide, David through a majestic canyon to see ancient petroglyphs and cliff dwellings.  (By the way, David tried to lose me in the deep sands and hairpin turns.  He failed).  The canyon floor was several inches thick with sand and trees, and smelled of jasmine.  It is a place of awe and wonderment.

Canyon de Chelly seems to me to be the quiet, stunning sibling of the Grand Canyon.  It is located entirely within the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona.  David was born and raised in the canyon and it is still a living community of Navajo (or Dine')

people.  But many choose to live outside the canyon explained David because they want color TV.  The canyon has sustained communities for more than 4,000 years from the Ancient Puebloans, to the Hopi and Navajo.  The Ancient Puebloans built structures into the naturally protective cliffs.  Some of the petroglyphs date to around 800 A.D.  A number of them were placed at slightly above eye level from the ground; others were carved very high up the cliff face and were more difficult to see in the rock.

Site Report No. 2: Chinati Foundation,TX

Judd purchased 340 acres of a defunct military base to create permanent installations for himself and his friends.  The Chinati Foundation (named after nearby mountain range) is a place to be experienced: the objects, installations, light, architecture and the environment.  The number and variety of sites is significant and unlike any other contemporary museum I have seen.   What I like most about Judd was his daring, confident vision.  He fully integrated art into every aspect of his life from sculptures to furniture to architecture.  Is this the arrogance of art (John says yes, I say maybe, but so what)? Does it exist only for personal expression or for other artists? 

Site Report No. 1: Marfa, Tx

Through “obstacles and ogres” (nod to Joseph Campbell), traps (speed) and terrain 2051 miles later: Marfa, Texas (pop. 2121). Driving in from the craggy Davis Mountains to high desert plains of cactus and brush in a straight line to this outpost.  It is remote, 57 miles north of the Mexican border.  It is hot and dusty.  The sun shines with purpose here.  Shadows are hard to find. The edges of everything, every object are sharp and clear, in hyper focus.  It’s intense.  Marfa was founded in 1883.  The railroad passed through town.  (It still does, often before sunrise.  Proof, John says, that I can sleep with a freight train running by, whistle blaring).  The story goes that the railroad engineer’s wife enjoyed reading Russian novels so the town was named after a character in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.  Also of note, the movie Giant (1955) was filmed in Marfa.  There are reminders of that history here and there.   Today I saw a photo of Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean from a recent Us Weekly magazine on the bulletin board at the local laundromat. 

Marfa might be considered the most super-cool, hippest place in America with its mix of cowboys and artists.  The people are friendly: they wave, say hello or simply nod your way.  The scene is a combination of decaying places and reclaimed spaces for galleries, stores, and restaurants.  (My midnight snack place is at The Museum of Electronic Wonders with its grilled Gruyère cheese, green chiles, and sriracha sauce).  All of this happened to Marfa because of artist Donald Judd (1928-94).  Under these vast skies and stars, he passed through Marfa as a serviceman from Alabama to Los Angeles en route to Korea.  Trying to escape city life, he started purchasing property in 1971 and moved here in 1972.
(Photos: Dostoyevsky's notes for Chapter 5 of The Brothers Karamazov and book jacket/en.wikipedia.org)