Exploring James Turrell's Roden Crafter and Quaker Meeting House | Art21

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. It's sort of an escape.

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.

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.