The journey is the point

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, travel, art, pilgrimages

In the Mojave Desert, about midway between Mojave and Boron, is an eminence named Castle Butte. I have seen it, but never been right up to it…not that I didn't try. It is not hard to get to these days, as suburbs run right up to its base. Forty years ago, there was a maze of dirt tracks. Somehow, no matter which track I took, I'd wind up going directly away from it. I nearly circled it, without ever getting within two miles of it. I sure would have liked to pick over the agates that tumble down its sides. Never happened. So I know how Erin Hogan feels.

Ms Hogan's personal journey "out west" from her Chicago home is chronicled in Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the land Art of the American West. Of six places she set out to see, she got to four of them. I haven't been to any of them, though I found pictures of five. The pix you'll find by clicking on the thumbnails below give only a glimpse of five of these large, and quirky, works of art.

The author set out on a trek that was planned for three weeks, with minimum planning. A confirmed extrovert, she dreaded solitude, but chose to embrace it and see if she could learn to live with it. As we introverts already know, that means learning to live with yourself, with no buffer of other people to distract you from yourself.

Getting to the Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, in the bed of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, was her first test. Firstly, it is a couple days' drive from Chicago. Then, there's the last half-hour on a track that tests your resolve to actually arrive. Once there, she found the artwork smaller than she'd imagined, but after a while realized that it embodied a sense of time. It had been built out into the lake, which later rose to immerse it. Recently, the lake has shrunk away and the earthworks are salt-encrusted and stained with red algae. It wears its history like the heart on a callow lover's sleeve.

If getting to her first goal was difficult, the second one proved beyond her abilities. A Jetta is not much of an off-road vehicle, and you definitely get off the roads in the Lucin area, where Nancy Holt secreted her Sun Tunnels. These four concrete tubes line up with the sunrise and -set on the solstices. That means they don't do much of interest for 363 days yearly.

The author, after a couple hours out of cell phone range, and with the ground continually threatening to rip out the undercarriage, gave up, spent the evening at a bar, declined an offer to be shown the way (by "getting out of Dodge"), and spent the night back at Salt Lake City.

Her next assault proved more fruitful. After a serendipitous visit to Hole N" The Rock, she got up onto Mormon Mesa without destroying her car, but found she was trying to navigate on a featureless plain, with the sun right overhead, and no compass. She finally found Double Negative, which was dug out rather than erected by Michael Heizer, a pair of trenches that align with one another across a large gully. From the satellite photo in Google Maps, I was able to scale the distance across the gully at that point: about 800 feet (240 m).

By this point in her trek, the author was getting more comfortable with herself. The landscaped helped. She couldn't avoid its beauty. I've always loved traveling through the desert West, and it just gets you out of yourself.

James Turrell's Roden Crater, in Arizona, was another miss. It is private, open by appointment only, and all her letters, e-mails and calls went unanswered. She drove through the area, a field of cinder cones, but could not tell which one might harbor the earthworks.

Lightning Field, erected under the direction of Walter De Maria, was quite a bit easier. She had an appointment, and they take you in for a 24-hour stay (at a rather steep rate for overnight in a cabin). On the way from the Roden Crater area, she'd picked up a friend who agreed to experience a couple of the places with her. They were housed with three other artistic souls (women 'of a certain age', it turned out).

This field of 400 metal spikes, that covers 0.6 square mile (1.6 sq km) in a regular array, at first seems unpromising. In the high midday sun, you can hardly see the spikes, though they are around twenty feet tall. Sunset, and later, sunrise, provided the show that made it all worth it. For a short time, the sun zinging through all the poles seems to capture most of the light.

Having survived a couple thousand miles of driving alone, an evening in a sleazy bar, nights in various motels—all obtained at the last moment—a brief, depressing visit to Juarez, Mexico, plus wind, sun and rain, the author now had her friend with her, and their shared memory of Lightning Field. They made their way to Marfa, Texas. This has no large earthwork, but it does have several extraordinary art installations, such as Donald Judd's 100 Untitled Works in Mill Aluminum, shown here.

Marfa is mainly a locale for artistic tourism these days. Throughout the book the author refers to the Dia Art Foundation, which has supported the construction of some of the works she visited. Dia began by helping support Donald Judd's work, but he formed his own foundation after a falling-out (something he did, sooner or later, with almost everyone). Tours of various large-scale works by Judd and others can consume a day or two.

Marfa was the end of the author's artistic pilgrimage. Once you've seen a few larger-scale artworks, art that fits in a "gallery" isn't really the same any more. Sure, it is still beautiful and retains its power to transform, but it is seen as part of something greater. Ms Hogan dropped off her friend at a nearby airport and headed for Chicago, alone. She'd learned to live with herself.