(upbeat electronic music)
Turrell: Generally, we use light.
We don't really pay much attention to the light itself.
That's my interest.
This fascination with light and how we come to light.
Woman: When you really start to look,
then you sort of lose yourself.
Man: Yeah.
Woman: And that's when it becomes sort of disorienting.
Man: Um-hmm. Ah. Woman: Whoa.
Woman: It's sort of an escape. Man: Yeah.
Woman: From everything that's above
with the bustling of the streets
and 'cause it's right under the street
and you wouldn't think it'd be so nice down here.
Turrell: I had this thought to just bring the cosmos closer down
to the space where we occupy.
(peaceful rock music)
It's always something to work with light in the outdoors.
I had spent seven months flying in the western states.
And that was how I found Roden Crater,
which is on the western edge of the painted desert.
You know, it had to sort of meet this criteria
of a certain height and it's nice
that it was away from other ones.
But I think the important thing is just this kind of sense
of power that each space or each place has.
So, the place felt right.
And I wanted a bowl shape that was raised above the plain.
That was important, so that you come up the space
and then you go through this and you see the shaping of sky.
And then when you come out,
there's actually a shaping of Earth.
(plane motor running)
The crater is a wonderful example of blending
hard science, of physical science, with art and vice versa.
Celestial events will be apparent at the crater site
that you won't be able to see and only be able to see
in few other spots on the earth.
To have a sort of new eight and half minute old light
from the sun to feel it physically
almost as we taste things,
this is where you can work with light like that.
Also, I wanted to use the very fine qualities of light.
I wanted to gather starlight
that was from outside the planetary system,
which would be older than our solar system.
And you can gather that light
and physically have that in place.
So, it's physically present to feel this old light.
This is the opening to the crater.
So, it's an elliptical sky space.
The space is really 'take you up into the sky'
and certainly, the events from the sky come through them
down into the crater.
So, this opening up into the sky is something I really like.
(metal clanging)
I met Jim Turrell about 15 years ago.
Jim is a big thinker, thinks big.
He had an idea to point a tunnel through the crater wall
to face the southwestern part of the sky
where the moon would appear every 18.6 years,
a cycle called the sorrows or a lower lunar standstill.
The cycle of the moon has been known
since the days of the Babylonian records.
So it goes back eight, 10,000 years.
And you can actually see this,
the image of this down inside the sun and moon space,
but then you'd have about 20 minutes to walk up to the top
and actually see it set on the horizon.
(ethereal music)
But the strangest thing is that we have made real
an actual illusion that is when we camp out,
We think that the sun rises in the east,
or if we're at night,
it looks as though the stars come up in the east
and move over us and go down in the west.
Actually, we are turning the opposite.
We're on the earth that's turning opposite way,
but we don't feel that.
So in the north space,
I've removed all reference to horizon
so your field of reference are the stars.
And so what happens is you feel yourself
to be moving, almost tipping.
So if you're sitting back in here, in this seat here,
you actually will see the rotation of the earth
and you can feel that.
James had a lifetime goal of building a meeting house
that was really used as a meeting house.
So, when he heard that Houston wanted
to build a meeting house and was in the process
of doing that and raising money,
he offered to donate his art.
Well, for me, that was kind
of the meeting house I always wanted to see.
I mean, it's a very traditional form
except it's convertible.
The top opens and it makes the sky space
where sky is really brought down to you
in the space where you sit.
You're never quite prepared for what the light
is going to do to you and what the interaction
with nature and the sublime quiet will do
when you come into a place like this
and just simply slow down.
(ethereal music)
Being a lifetime Quaker,
we felt strongly that James would not design anything
that was not appropriate for our worship.
We are hoping that our meeting house becomes an ecumenical
place where people could find inner peace.
I think was maybe five or six and my grandmother
would begin taking me in and sitting me
in the Quaker meeting house,
and we would just sit in there together.
There's this time
when you no longer are in first day of school,
but you actually come and join the meeting.
And I remember I tried to, you know, ask you my grandmother,
you know, "What, what are we doing?
What are, what am I supposed to do?"
And she said, "Just wait.
We're going inside to greet the light."
And I like that.
This idea to go inside, to find that light within
literally as well as figuratively and so
I was very interested in this sort of literal look at it.
Of course,
I'm still trying to figure out exactly what she meant
(laughs)
My daughter was born when I first had the idea
for the crater.
Went to college and university, got her medical degree and
now is a doctor, and is married.
And I'm still not finished with the crater.
So, I've gotta get along here and get this thing done.
(footsteps)
To keep the crater,
I had to go get a loan from farm credit
and really get involved in ranching
'cause they wouldn't loan money on vacant land.
So suddenly, I have a one million dollar mortgage
and this is not interesting to my wife.
And she felt I was mortgaging our children's future.
(horse neighing) Did you hear that buddy?
(galloping)
James: We run almost separate operations.
The cattle are my department
and the new art is his department.
Payday's once a year.
It's in the fall when you sell the calves.
Jim: Good boys. Good boys.
And things can go pretty well or they can go pretty sour
depending on the price of cattle at that time.
Jim doesn't stay real happy
when the price of cattle's low.
Well, imagine that (laughs).
Jim: People often ask me how much this crater costs
and you know, it costs made two marriages
and a relationship.
Those are the places
where you feel the greatest discouragement as you see,
it's sometimes hard for others to follow
what you think is the natural course of things
and how to get something done.
If you look at the horizon,
it's a milky, cloudy type of view,
but as you go higher in the sky,
the sky becomes a uniform blue, maybe with clouds.
But if you can be in a well so to speak,
or in a crater like Roden,
you see no contrast with the depth of the sky and your view.
So you realize its closeness.
And sometimes if you're conscious enough, you can,
you'll discover that you're in the atmosphere.
You're not separated from the sky at night.
And even during the day you have this feeling
that you're one with the universe.
You know, when you read a book
you're often so involved in the space
generated by the author
that whatever happens in front of you disappears.
People pass by.
You don't even notice them.
So you've paid the price of admission
and you've entered that space.
A lot of people come to art and they look at it
and this is one of the problems in contemporary art.
And so, they don't actually enter the realm
that the artist was involved in.
We have a little more of a distance there and the situation
of the journey to the place like Roden Crater.
The fact that you actually have to do some thing or some
involvement to have this come over you,
you have to quiet
and it actually makes this experience,
I think, much stronger.