Eleven Miles from the Continental Divide
It rained that afternoon. Not much lightning to speak of. We fishtailed over muddy roads for about an hour. Our location was really lost as far as I was concerned. There was little evidence of human presence in this isolated mountain valley of western New Mexico. At last a lone windmill came into view and a homesteader’s cabin hewn from rough timbers. We had finally reached The Lightning Field.
My wife and I were joined by four other intrepid art pilgrims from Brooklyn, Paris, and D.C. We claimed our bunkrooms, checked our food supplies, and the plumbing. For the next 20 hours we were on our own with Walter De Maria’s interactive, time-based work of land art: 400 stainless steel lightning rods meticulously arranged in a rectangular grid one mile by one kilometer. My first impression was the profound silence. I felt my cares slough off into the ether.
The Lightning Field has a magnetic presence. It calls us to enter, to experience it from within its airy boundary. Each lightning rod was spaced 220’ apart in each direction. The immense valley was covered in scrubland with dozens of wildflower species in glorious bloom. The soil was as soft and sandy as an ancient river bed. Each step revealed multicolored stones and bits of petrified wood. Jackrabbits darted through the brush. Bloodthirsty green mosquitoes swarmed out of muddy depressions. I began to understand the artist’s statement, “The land is not the setting for the work, but a part of the work.”
The owner/operator of this site carefully guards the artist’s intent. It was meant to be experienced alone or in a very small group. De Maria wanted us to feel the space, the isolation. It was only natural that our group scattered across the field almost out of sight of one another. I felt myself slowing down. I was entering the present moment, participating in a living presence. It reminded me how vital our engagement with art is to its meaning. When do we ever have the opportunity to spend this much time immersed in a single work of art?
After our initial foray into the field we wandered back to the cabin. The social element of this experience is something I underestimated. A storm was brewing on the horizon. We sat on the wraparound porch in rapt attention. Yonder sky darkened. Was that a lightning flash!? Was it headed this way? We hoped for fulfillment. To my great surprise the clever couple from Brooklyn couldn’t resist breaking out their laptops. It felt a bit blasphemous. I noted that my reverence for the space had deepened. I left the cabin to fly my kite. I thought of Ben Franklin who invented the “lightning attractor” in 1749.
Gradually the winds died down. The storm blew north leaving behind a violet wall. Sunset soon came. We ventured back out into the field. As the twilight descended shafts of colored light illuminated wisps of cloud. When the light reached the narrow points of the rods they glowed like birthday candles. Elation! My perception expanded, merged into the surrounding environment. Words ceased to mean.
We broke fast that morning, attempting to communicate our individual impressions. A while later it dawned on me. It’s the light, not the lightning. The Lightning Field demands our most innate attention to light, observing its changes, its shifting influence on the space. It is a bodily interaction yet beyond merely physical perception. We recognize the light. We are it. At noon our host came to retrieve our party from the cabin. The rods began to disappear into the landscape. In time, in light, I understood the installation blended into the sentience of nature.
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Brian Hearn has been the Film Curator at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art since 1995. In 2009 The Oklahoma Film Critics Circle awarded Brian with The Tilghman Award, for outstanding support of independent, foreign and art films in Oklahoma and for raising film consciousness in the state. Brian is a 2010 Oklahoma Art Writing & Curatorial Fellow.
