Dirtbag Writer

Why I Love the West: Crazy Earth Art & Open Space

Posted on 03. Feb, 2010 by Writer in On The Road

It is no coincidence that the ultimate event in self-expression, Burning Man, occurs every August in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Whether it is ancient rock art, massive earth work pieces (Michael Heizer’s work) or mind-tripping burning playa works – Nevada and the rest of the West are breeding ground for artistic expression.

In The Void, the Grid & the Sign, William L Fox takes the reader on a remarkable journey through the dramatic void of the Great Basin making sense of the landscape through art, architecture, and history.  Fox advocates the need for such voids, “big empty spaces into which we can travel in order to see ourselves.”  The desert is important because it is absent of everything we are accustomed to – grass, trees, signs, buildings, city lights, landmarks… The desert severely disturbs our perceptions, makes us uncomfortable, and challenges our habits and comforts of mind.  And when we return home, we view things differently.

Chillin' Somewhere on the Utah-Nevada Border

“In a sense, by virtue or its unadorned surface and the subsequent scope of our vision, the desert acts as an indicator region for the rest of the planet… It’s precisely the vision we need in order to calculate truly our effects on the planet before we spoil it to the point of our own extinction, if we haven’t yet done so,” Fox says so eloquently in the book.

After spending weeks in the Mojave Desert and Death Valley a few years ago, I drove through Las Vegas on my way to the Grand Canyon.  I stopped at Whole Foods to stock up on groceries and wandered aimlessly through that store looking to dazed and confused – a total crazy case – that 3 employees asked me if I was ok.  I was so utterly overwhelmed by the aisles and aisles of packaged goods and excess and all that unnatural fluorescent lighting that I honestly couldn’t function.

The Sun Tunnels

I returned to my car empty handed realizing I could make do with what I had.  It was totally like that scene in the movie Into the Wild, where Alexander Supertramp ends up in LA after spending all that time drifting on the Colorado – feeling so totally overstimulated and disconnected from body and space and so small and so alone on this Earth.

And for this experience, one more reason I love the West.

Art may just be the way to forge a human relationship with the desert – a chance to have our perceptions altered and hopefully leading us to reexamine the way we view the rest of our world.

Other ‘Why I Love the West’ posts:

Why I Love the West: Amazing Natural Hot Springs

Tags: Books, Love the West