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(upbeat electronic music)

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Turrell: Generally, we use light.

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We don't really pay much 
attention to the light itself.

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(quiet electronic music continues)

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That's my interest.

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This fascination with light 
and how we come to light.

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Woman: When you really start to look,

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then you sort of lose yourself.

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Man: Yeah.

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Woman: And that's when it 
becomes sort of disorienting.

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Man: Um-hmm. Ah.
Woman: Whoa.

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Woman: It's sort of an escape.
Man: Yeah.

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Woman: From everything that's above

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with the bustling of the streets

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and 'cause it's right under the street

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and you wouldn't think it'd be so nice down here.

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Turrell: I had this thought to just 
bring the cosmos closer down

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to the space where we occupy.

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(peaceful guitar music)

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It's always something to work 
with light in the outdoors.

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I had spent seven months 
flying in the western states.

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And that was how I found Roden Crater,

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which is on the western 
edge of the painted desert.

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You know, it had to sort of 
meet this criteria

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of a certain height and it's nice

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that it was away from other ones.

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But I think the important thing 
is just this kind of sense

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of power that each space 
or each place has.

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So, the place felt right.

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And I wanted a bowl shape that 
was raised above the plain.

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That was important, 
so that you come up the space

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and then you go through this 
and you see the shaping of sky.

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And then when you come out, 
there's actually a shaping of Earth.

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(peaceful electronic music)

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(plane motor running)

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The crater is a wonderful example

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of blending hard science, of physical 
science, with art and vice versa.

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Celestial events will be 
apparent at the crater site

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that you won't be able to see

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and only be able to see 
in a few other spots on the earth.

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To have a sort of new, 
eight-and-half-minute old,

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light from the sun,

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to feel it physically,
almost as we taste things,

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this is where you can 
work with light like that.

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Also, I wanted to use the 
very fine qualities of light.

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I wanted to gather starlight

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that was from outside 
the planetary system,

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which would be older 
than our solar system.

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And you can gather that light

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and physically have that in place.

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So, it's physically present 
to feel this old light.

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This is the opening to the crater.

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So, it's an elliptical sky space.

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The space is really 
'take you up into the sky',

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and, certainly, the events 
from the sky come through them

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down into the crater.

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So, this opening up into the 
sky is something I really like.

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(ladder clanging)

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I met Jim Turrell about 15 years ago.

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Jim is a big thinker, thinks big.

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He had an idea to point a tunnel 
through the crater wall

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to face the southwestern part of the sky

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where the moon would appear 
every 18.6 years,

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a cycle called the sorrows 
or a lower lunar standstill.

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The cycle of the moon has been known

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since the days of the Babylonian records.

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So it goes back eight, 10,000 years.

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And you can actually see this,

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the image of this down inside 
the sun and moon space,

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but then you'd have about 20 
minutes to walk up to the top

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and actually see it set on the horizon.

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(ethereal music)

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But the strangest thing is 
that we have made real

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an actual illusion. 
That is, when we camp out,

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we think that the sun 
rises in the east,

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or if we're at night,

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it looks as though 
the stars come up in the east

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and move over us 
and go down in the west.

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Actually, we are turning the opposite.

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We're on the earth that's 
turning the opposite way,

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but we don't feel that.

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So in the north space,

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I've removed all reference to horizon

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so your field of reference 
are the stars.

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And so what happens is 
you feel yourself

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to be moving, almost tipping.

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So if you're sitting back 
in here, in this seat here,

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you actually will see 
the rotation of the earth

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and you can feel that.

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(peaceful music)

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James had a lifetime goal 
of building a meeting house

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that was really used 
as a meeting house.

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So, when he heard 
that Houston wanted

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to build a meeting house 
and was in the process

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of doing that and raising money,

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he offered to donate his art.

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Well, for me, that was kind of 
the meeting house I always 
wanted to see.

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I mean, it's a very traditional form 
except it's convertible.

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The top opens and 
it makes the sky space,

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where sky is really 
brought down to you

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in the space where you sit.

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You're never quite prepared 
for what the light

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is going to do to you 
and what the interaction

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with nature and 
the sublime quiet will do

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when you come into a place like this

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and just simply slow down.

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(ethereal music)

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Being a lifetime Quaker,

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we felt strongly that James 
would not design anything

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that was not appropriate 
for our worship.

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We are hoping that our meeting 
house becomes an ecumenical place

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where people could find inner peace.

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I think I was maybe five or six, 
and my grandmother would 


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begin taking me in and sitting me 
in the Quaker meeting house,

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and we would just sit in there together.

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There's this time when you 
no longer are in first day of school,

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but you actually come 
and join the meeting.

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And I remember I tried to, you know, 
ask you my grandmother, you know,

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"What, what are we doing? 
What are, what am I supposed to do?"

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And she said, "Just wait. 
We're going inside to greet the light."

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And I like that.

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This idea to go inside, 
to find that light within,

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literally as well as figuratively,

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and so I was very interested 
in this sort of literal look at it.

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Of course, I'm still trying to figure 
out exactly what she meant.

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(laughs)

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My daughter was born when I first 
had the idea for the crater.

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Went to college and university, 
got her medical degree and

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now is a doctor, and is married.

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And I'm still not finished 
with the crater.

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So, I've gotta get along 
here and get this thing done.

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(footsteps)

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To keep the crater,

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I had to go get a loan 
from farm credit

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and really get involved in ranching

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'cause they wouldn't loan money 
on vacant land.

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So suddenly, I have a 
one-million-dollar mortgage

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and this is not interesting to my wife.

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And she felt I was mortgaging 
our children's future.

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(horse neighing)
Did you hear that buddy?

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(galloping)

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Turrell: We run 
almost separate operations.

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The cattle are my department

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and the new art is his department.

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Payday's once a year. It's in 
the fall, when you sell the calves.

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Good boys. Good boys.

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And things can go pretty well 
or they can go pretty sour

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depending on the price of cattle 
at that time.

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Jim doesn't stay real happy 
when the price of cattle's low.

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Well, imagine that. (laughs)

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Turrell: People often ask me 
how much this crater costs

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and you know, it costs me 
two marriages and a relationship.

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Those are the places where you feel 
the greatest discouragement,

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as you see it's sometimes 
hard for others to follow

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what you think is 
the natural course of things

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and how to get something done.

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If you look at the horizon,

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it's a milky, cloudy type of view,

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but as you go higher in the sky,

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the sky becomes a uniform blue, maybe with clouds.

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But if you can be in a well so to speak,

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or in a crater like Roden,

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you see no contrast with the 
depth of the sky and your view.

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So you realize its closeness.

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And sometimes if you're conscious enough, you can,

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you'll discover that you're in the atmosphere.

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You're not separated from the sky at night.

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And even during the day you have this feeling

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that you're one with the universe.

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You know, when you read a book

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you're often so involved in the space

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generated by the author

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that whatever happens in front of you disappears.

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People pass by.

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You don't even notice them.

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So you've paid the price of admission

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and you've entered that space.

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A lot of people come to art and they look at it

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and this is one of the 
problems in contemporary art.

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And so, they don't actually enter the realm

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that the artist was involved in.

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We have a little more of a 
distance there and the situation

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of the journey to the place like Roden Crater.

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The fact that you actually 
have to do some thing or some

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involvement to have this come over you,

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you have to quiet

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and it actually makes this experience,

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I think, much stronger.