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

(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)

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(bell chimes)