(upbeat electronic music)
Turrell: Generally, we use light.
We don't really pay much
attention to the light itself.
(quiet electronic music continues)
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 guitar 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.
(peaceful electronic music)
(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 a 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.
(ladder 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 the 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.
(peaceful music)
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 I 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)
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.
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)
Turrell: People often ask me
how much this crater costs
and you know, it costs me
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.
(upbeat music)
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.
(music slows)
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.
(ethereal music)
(rhythmic music)
To order a two-tape set of art:21,
Art in the 21st Century,
on videocassette, or the
companion book to the program,
call PBS Home Video, at
1-800-Play-PBS.
To learn more about art:21,
Art in the 21st Century,
and to download the free
teachers' guide,
please visit PBS online, at PBS.org.
(bell chimes)