Lightning Field - Wall Installation for Walter De Maria (detail)
Push Pinned Collage - 2005
One Night at Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field
Companion to “Installation for Walter De Maria”
The Art in America magazine issue of May/June 1978 changed my life. The issue contained an article and photos of Walter De Maria’s massive land art project of 1977 - “The Lightning Field”. The idea of such a place with lightning storms in the middle of nowhere was a very attractive draw for me. The magazine photos of the land and lightning really got to me. That a visitor would be there with a limited number of people was a further draw for me. I decided then and there that I wanted and needed to make an art pilgrimage to Western New Mexico someday in my life.
Mr. De Maria found the location using records of where lightning storms struck frequently, along with a five year search by truck with two “associates” in the five states of Utah, Nevada, California, Texas and New Mexico.
Art Forum Magazine had a cover story on the Lightning Field with a number of the official DIA Arts Foundation photos of the field in the April 1980 issue. You can now see the same images on the internet. Those magazine pages were put to use in a couple collages that can be seen in the Erotic Gallery of this museum. One inch square parts of those pages also appear in the collage titled “Installation for Walter De Maria”. This is the story of my visit to the Lightning Field.
The years passed by and I did not make my pilgrimage. I learned a great deal more about land art and saw a few installations along the way including Robert Smithson’s famous Spiral Jetty. The Lightning Field never left the conversation of art in my brain. I visited New Mexico a few times and saw quite a bit of the state before Melissa, my wife, and I spent a night at the Lightning Field.
As years of more time had passed by, I became aware of an increasing displeasure with myself for not having visited the Lightning Field. In the year 2000 Melissa and I began to look at what we had to do in order to visit the site. Sometime after that we figured out when we could go and made reservations to visit the field in October of 2002. October was the time that worked with both of our jobs.
October is generally considered to be not the best time because the storm season is at its end. Most of the lightning storms occur during the summer months. Accommodations and visitations to the field were to end Oct 31st. We were there during the last week open to visitors that year. I was well aware of the fact that we may not see lightning and that the poles and place might be our experience during the time we would have there. I was perfectly fine with that fact. First and foremost I wanted to be in the space. An electric storm would be great but the field itself sounded great to me.
A visitor to the Lightning Field does not drive up to a gate, be admitted and then head to your lodging to do whatever. Guests are picked up at a specified time, in the parking lot at the DIA Arts Foundation office housed in an old, probably once empty, building in the small town of Quemado New Mexico.
I am sure Quemado has never been a hot spot location for your average New Mexican tourist. Melissa and I made the most of our visit to the area. We spent a great afternoon completely alone on trails at El Malpais National Monument before getting to Quemado. The beautiful, wild west scenery prepped us for the Lightning Field.
On the morning/afternoon of our return to Quemado, after visiting the Lightning Field, Melissa and I spent time at a remarkable science/astronomy installation in perfect contrast to the Lightning Field. The Very Large Array is a large dish antennae group aimed at space when in operation. We took roads driving around the array. We stopped, looked at the VLA, the land & sky. We were standing on the Plains of St. Augustine – another massive expanse of land surrounded by mountains near and far. I figured we were now on the other side of mountains we had seen from the Lightning Field. After the Lightning Field, I needed to expose some film and started shooting the VLA, land, sky and Melissa. We took a walk along the outside of the property fence of the array. The vantage point provided the best shots of the entire VLA. We walked the public trails among the antennae and went into the operations area of a couple of the antenna open to the public. We did not contact space aliens nor has the VLA ever done so.
We stayed in Quemado at a local motel the night before our visit to the Lightning Field. We ate in town that evening and hung out. In the morning we had breakfast, walked around looking at and photographing the old mostly empty buildings of what appeared to be a mostly dead town. In a junk store I bought a few very fine blues and rock CDs in perfect condition for a few dollars total – more tunes for the road. We were relaxed and enjoying ourselves as we waited for the appointed time in the DIA parking lot.
I wanted to look inside the DIA ARTS building if possible, somewhat expecting to see some kind of art work in there. No one was around but the building was open. Inside I found a few pieces of furniture that must have been the office but no art work. The space needed repairs but the high long walls and open space were waiting for a sculpture or two on the floor and an installation or two on the walls. I stood there thinking of what I might put on the walls and if I should tell DIA about my ideas. Ha Ha!
I was getting very excited about the upcoming land art. I also knew very well standing there that we were there for land art and a rare sort of experience not for more stuff on walls. We were already feeling the distance from people. The DIA building, with or without art, meant nothing in comparison to where we were going.
The day and last days had been full of lovely New Mexico blue sky autumn weather - not a cloud in sight and rain had not been predicted, for that day or any in the near future. The situation was not looking good for lightning in the parking lot, anyplace nearby or for as far as the eye could see or the senses could tell.
Back outside in the parking lot, the conversation quickly turned to the lack of rain in the forecast when we met our three Canadian travel companions (two women and one man). Five of us would spend the night in the cabin at the Lightning Field – a nice small number of people for a large piece of land as far as I was concerned.
We were all talking. I was not really paying attention to the sky when I felt a couple drops of rain and then a couple more. Overhead a sole grey scout cloud was dropping a few bits of water. Could this mean something? Was that our rain for the day? The rest of the sky was still very blue and clear. Rain or no rain, we were going and Melissa and I were very ready to be out in the field.
Our driver for the ride to the field had arrived and introduced himself. He grew up in the area and was one of the original people who helped De Maria put the poles in the ground. He has been caretaker to the site ever since. He is the man who has picked up many a visitor to the field and had to answer the same questions over and over and over. I had one question. Would we see the field before we reached the location? Yes, there were places along the ride where you could see the field. I did not care about questions or conversation after that - we were moving. I started to look at and focus on the landscape.
I cannot say I remember much about the cabin at the field. It was comfortable enough and had what we needed. When we arrived at the cabin our driver explained a few things about the cabin and staying there. Basically - “No Cameras Allowed” & “Do Not Go Out In Field Of Poles When Lightning Is Striking”. He told us guests had been there multiple times and never seen one bolt of lightning. He explained he lived off down the road some miles from us and gave us his phone number in case of an emergency. He told us when we would be picked up in the morning and left the five of us there with the poles outside and lots of blue sky daylight. The kitchen was stocked with a meal for the evening and breakfast in the morning. We five guests got ourselves arranged in the cabin, spoke about eating and that was the last we saw of our cabin mates until dinner. Melissa and I headed outdoors to the Lightning Field.
Upon leaving the cabin we were greeted by the great outdoors and numerous jack rabbits running around. To me that meant there had to be birds of prey around, coyotes and mountain lions perhaps on this Southwest plateau of land well secluded from most human activity. Any sense of path into the field quickly disappeared into a landscape of cacti and shrubs in open wilderness. Trees did not live there. At first Melissa and I simply wandered around plant to plant, from pole to pole and from one look at the horizon to another. With every look at the sky we did not see a cloud in all that space. With the poles around us, good air and a good feel to the place – we were just fine.
The Lightning Field sits on a large empty plateau at 7,200 feet above sea level. The Lightning Field consists of four-hundred finely pointed, solid, stainless steel poles two inches wide. The poles are arranged in a rectangle, which is one kilometer wide running north to the south and one mile wide from the east to the west. Each pole is spaced 220 feet apart N-S and E-W. The poles are planted in such a way that the point of each pole is at exactly the same height as the tallest pole standing 27.5 feet tall above the surface of earth. A very large table top would lay perfectly flat across the points of the poles. Despite uneven land, every pole top is well above the head of any human being with the shortest pole at 15 feet high. Each pole is a perfect sculpture in itself, shining smooth and reflecting colors of the landscape or of my shirt and pants. The poles had a presence on the land. I had to think they were the most beautiful poles I had ever seen.
I had a goal of getting to the center of the field. For one thing I wanted to see what it all looked like near the center with all those rows of poles around. We headed that way while still wandering around depending on what pulled us one way or another. We did not measure, count rows or have GPS to find the center. We let our vision and sense of place stop us at what I decided was close enough to the center for my further purposes of being out there. We were out there and poles went in every direction. I could not tell exactly where they ended, if they did. The poles disappeared as birds in flight disappear in front of your eyes. Walter had created a very surrealistic landscape and we were the human figures in it.
My intent at this central location in the field was to perform one of my very untrained and unprofessional shaman rituals. My humble reason for being there was to ask The Lightning Storm to come our way. Bowing and giving honor and respect to the space and place and all living creatures therein I performed my ritual and spoke to the four directions. I smoked to each direction. I played my blues harmonica to each direction. Melissa sat in silence looking at plants and being there in the place. We both sat there in silence for a while without a cloud in the sky. All the while the sky and the light on the poles changed as the sun headed to the west.
You should know dear Ms. or Sir that, no matter what I did out in the field, I do not take or claim any responsibility for what happened next in the skies over New Mexico. It was all a remarkable matter of chance. This matter of chance made the 24 years of waiting to be at that spot, at a certain time in space, all perfectly satisfied and satisfying beyond anything I could have ever imagined.
The atmosphere of the place had changed to late afternoon. The rabbits were running around as we arrived back at the cabin to eat with our cabin mates. They had agreed to warm up the food and do whatever to make dinner and table ready for all of us to sit down to eat. I admit, we took our time getting back.
First, I was with Melissa my love and we loved the place. In a way we did not want to get back to the cabin. We headed that way on a wandering course directed by the whims of the two of us and the fact that it was impossible to walk in a straight line. We were looking at the shrubs and cacti. We were scanning the land for animals, skies for birds, looking at the ground for snake trails or snakes, animal footprints, bird nests, cool looking rocks, crawling insects, or anything. We were constantly scanning the skies and horizon for signs of The Storm.
Forty-five minutes after I finished my performance in the array of poles we heard very faint thunder far off in some direction. We could not tell from what direction at first. Just to hear thunder was exciting to us. In a short while the thunder was still faint but noticeably louder when we noticed storm clouds coming over the mountain peaks and ridges forty miles to the southwest. The volume of The Storm increased and came across the vast panorama of sky and land in front of us. The Storm seemed to be coming straight at us. I think it is safe to say our hearts were pounding faster and we were thrilled. We could feel the force of nature coming long before the front cloud line reached us. We watched and felt The Storm front pass over our heads. The cracks of thunder were very loud and getting closer.
We had made it back to the cabin. We ate with dark groups of clouds heading at us and light rain falling from some clouds. Streaming raining could be seen falling from distant clouds. I kept getting up to look for the lightning which was obviously coming. Food did not matter much - it was time to go outside again. By agreement with our cabin mates, so light would not be glowing around the cabin, we turned off all or most of the lights for a good deal of the evening.
Stepping into the landscape at that time was worth whatever it took to be there. The size of the landscape was always the first sensation – one could feel it if you were trying to pay attention at all. A person is engulfed and humbled in land like this, as one should be. That plateau of land was/is the world – we just live on it. The poles pointed to the sky but in fact marked the limitations of human beings in this place we were surrounded by. Melissa and I headed west moving away from the cabin and poles but mostly parallel with the poles.
The sky and landscape were so large that a great deal was going on besides increasing rain and clouds. Some of the clouds were not dropping rain and the intensity of rain could change from cloud to cloud. The sky was still exposed between clouds and through holes in the clouds. The blue sky of the day’s end could still be seen and the first hint of indigo blue dusk. We watched the sky turn into the blackness of night in the middle of nowhere.
The lighting had come into our vision many miles out. Sharp, bright white strikes of lightning were lighting up the clouds and land near the strike. The Storm had begun launching bolts of lightning at any spot in front of us. Through near and far locations of falling rain and hail, we could see the colors of sunset increasing within the multiple layers of clouds. There were multiple versions of sunsets in full range of sunset cloud colors (golden oranges to pale and bright pinks) over us and all around. Rays of sunlight were shooting over the heads of clouds and across the sky and faces of other clouds. Looking to the east there was a rainbow in one patch of rain and light. All the while the lightning was coming with increasing frequency. There began to be more than one strike of lightning at the same time and at vastly divergent locations. Explosions of thunder were almost instantaneous and sparkling loud. Melissa and I headed back to the advertised security of the cabin.
I am sure we went into the cabin at times but mostly we stayed outside - close to the cabin. The show of lightning was not subsiding. We stayed under the roof’s edge at moments of hard rain. Night had come to our experience. The sky was black with black clouds or black night behind them. We had lightning and stars at the same time. Lightning was falling and clouds were flashing in all directions of the compass. We were witness to a truly fantastic display of nature and there was still more to come – something like we never saw before and I do not expect to see again.
During all of this time our cabin mates mostly stayed inside. We were barely aware of them most of the time. As far as I was concerned, Melissa and I had this whole awesome world class event of nature to ourselves. I would have to perform many more rituals in thanks to The Storm that came
Electricity was in the air everywhere. We could feel the tingle of the energy in the air on our skin and in our hair. The word sparkling is a good way to describe the sensation. Lightning was now coming down all around us – near, midrange and far off – a storm of lightning across the land. I had been circling the cabin but it became impossible for me to stay near the cabin. I had to move away from the building to have a full view of the sky and landscape. Melissa also had to move from the building briefly to see what there was to see.
There happened to be a climax – a scene to witness and be in awe of. The lighting seemed to be lighting up the universe of night beyond the clouds. I could not look for lightning to happen somewhere - it was just happening in every direction. We believe we saw lightning go up into the clouds. We could see bolts of lightning, groups of bolts of lightning which seemed to come out of the same spot in a cloud along with constant flashes of light all over the land, the roof of cloud cover and from inside the clouds. Lightning and flashes of light sparked up the field of poles from various directions. Loud explosions of electricity did indeed sound war like, or yes, as though someone’s god somewhere was very unhappy.
We began to see colors in the lightning strikes – yellow at first. Literally, the bolt of electricity would be yellow. The glow of light would be yellow. The lit up cloud would be yellow. Somewhat like a good piece of music, more colors introduced themselves – a blue bolt or bolts of lightning with blue light on the poles and into the clouds. Instead of a white flash there would be a red flash, then a green flash with green light. If there was a pattern to the colors I do not think we would have been able to detect that. There were moments when more than one color appeared in the clouds at one time. To describe the scene I will say it looked as though a rainbow had blown up and the splashes of color hit the air and clouds.* The Storm was phenomenal. We were charged up to say the least.
The Storm ended as it had begun. The tail end of The Storm passed over our heads. We watched the whole mass, now mostly dark, move off into a deeper dark with flashes of light in the clouds. The last few distant strikes of lightning within our view hit the ground or air. As the Storm moved further off to the northeast the clouds were still flashing white from the inside. The last distant booms sounded off. We were left standing there in the silence to feel the buzz in the air. The awesome display of nature’s remarkable beauty and incredibly destructive power lasted for two hours.
We were still awake late at night but had to get in bed because our plan was to get up before sunrise. We had set our portable alarm clock to wake us up in plenty of time. We were awake before dawn and did not need the alarm. We did not have much time left at the Lightning Field as we would get picked up earlier than we had expected. Appreciating the shelter we had for the night, still charged up, we were ready to get back out to the space of the place, stainless steel poles and the sunrise. Once again, what happened in front of us was nothing we ever could have planned or imagined.
Stepping out of the cabin into the great outdoors was once again worth all the effort to be there. The air could not have been cleaner or fresher. Even the last dark of night looked clean. Real oxygen and life entered our lungs and spirit. The scent in the air of the plants and earth, both alive with rain, was wonderful. Being there was nourishing the essence of our being. Melissa and I took a few steps more and just stood there looking through the faint light, smelling and listening. We seemed to be housed within a very quiet but audible hum of space.
Naturally, rabbits were already running around. Unfortunately a few of them were expecting to get fed which partly explained why so many were around besides the fact that they were rabbits. We did not feed the rabbits and moved away from them and the cabin.
With just the slightest touch of light in the air the thin stainless steel poles were already standing there alert to the coming day and landscape. Oddly enough these poles do not seem out of place in the landscape. They seem to be perfectly in place like they have been there for a very long time. The landscape, plants, birds and animals all seem at ease with the poles. Depending on the light and or distance, they can be invisible to the eye.
Standing there in the field, I realized how a solitary location may be the most important aspect of the entire concept. A solitary location is a place of visions. Walter De Maria brought his vision to a place that seems to have matched his concept perfectly. Each and every pole is a finely a crafted sculpture planted in the land. The 400 poles became finely crafted land art of a wonderful surreal and ethereal nature. To me, the sculpture is an art work of perfection and grace – 400 Graces.
For the most part, the poles stand unnoticed by the landscape and the lightning could care less about the poles. The fact is that the poles are only rarely struck by lightning. Thousands upon thousands of bolts of lightning can hit the air and ground on the land around the field and for many miles out but the so-called Lightning Field hardly ever gets hit. To me, this fact says a great deal about how large this area of land is and about the behavior of lightning. Lightning does not necessarily do what we humans want it to do – how about that! Believe me, folks, with all that lightning the night before, I did not worry about the fact that none of it hit a pole.
We had not been to the east end of the field yet and the sky above the distant landscape was beginning the light show of dawn and sunrise. Without speaking about it Melissa and I headed toward the light and the interior of the field. The morning became light enough that we did not need our flashlights. We followed a crooked route to the end of the field where we stepped out beyond the poles. I wanted to find any small rise in the land to look back at the field of poles. We stepped up to a small mound of earth and looked east as the top of the sun came up over the landscape a radiant, glowing orange with its own fire to celebrate the gorgeous day.
We turned around to the west to look at the field of poles and that is when the surprise of the morning happened. As the sun rose, its beam of orange light lowered its aim and shot across the land. The light gradually descended to touch on the sharp tips of four hundred poles in the lightning field (remember the tips make a perfectly flat plane in space). At the exact same moment, each and every pole tip was lit up like a candle. Every tip had a small glowing halo of light around it. With a close look the tip seemed to glow from inside. Forget the supposed glory of gods and victorious battles of war – this scene WAS glorious, a magic moment on the planet and we happened to be the only humans there. Being alone was a very important element in the experience. Thank you Walter! If the exact same thing happened at Disneyland with a few thousand people watching it would not have been the same rewarding experience at all.
Reaching the ground, the sunlight exposed a bright, shiny, twinkling clean landscape with every detail of the land clear in the morning air – colors and edges were sharp. The daylight exposed a beautiful fox stalking through the shrubs and cacti. (I thought - rabbits = fox – a rabbit may become breakfast) Already a blue sky was above us with a few small floating orange, gold, yellow clouds slowly sailing toward the sunrise. Melissa and I could not have been more happy, excited, pleased, thrilled or grateful to the cosmos for the fact that we were together at that moment in life at that location on the planet.
We had our night at the Lightning Field. If it could have been better in some way or somehow greater than it was – who could tell?
Afterword
Melissa and I lived in Phoenix AZ from fall of 2006 to spring of 2009. During the rainy season it was typical to have a storm or two with lightning. A not so typical storm hit in 2008. According to the weather service - from about 7:00 pm one evening until about 1:00 am the next morning more than two thousand strikes of lightning hit the ground around the Phoenix area. It was a spectacular, loud storm. Moving around inside the house looking out windows was not working for me. When I spoke with my daughter later and told her about the storm she asked – “Dad, did you go outside during the storm?” I had to tell her – “Of course I did. It was great!”
* Lightning with colors footnote – Growing up in Minnesota I heard and saw a great deal of lightning during summer storms. In 1977 I saw something I had never seen before. A very large mid-afternoon storm passed over Minneapolis. Outside, a person could feel the approach of the storm if you were aware of those weather changes. There was a great deal of lightning – large, close, frequent bolts and huge explosions of sound - the kind of storm that frightens people, for good reason. To me, the electrical charge in the air seemed stronger than usual. The storm left a trail of green air in its wake as it moved on to the next city. After the storm, things outside in the air looked green instead of their actual color. A white house or car looked green instead of white. I lived on a busy corner of a one way street with a traffic signal on the corner. The yellow pole of the traffic light had mystically and mysteriously turned green. I had gone outside to look at the scene and feel the air left by the storm. I decided I had to go get my camera. I was thinking this condition could not last long. I still have the photo of the yellow pole magically turned green. The condition lasted 15-20 minutes. I could not smell any toxic waste in the air. I had not heard an airplane or jet go over spreading some horrible thing in the air. Maybe everything and we were glowing from radiation. Maybe it was something like Day of the Triffids. I decided that the air had turned green because of some kind of charged particles in the air as a result of the storm. Not exactly a scientific explanation there but that is all the further I got with explaining that situation. I think that there might be a connection between that story and the fact of colors in the air at the Lightning Field while lightning was striking.