Jack Murphy has a feature on Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech University in the March/April 2015 issue of Texas Architect magazine (pages 48-55). Check it online at
http://issuu.com/taartdir/docs/ta15_m-a_web/51?e=1238403/11781246
Jack Murphy has a feature on Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech University in the March/April 2015 issue of Texas Architect magazine (pages 48-55). Check it online at
http://issuu.com/taartdir/docs/ta15_m-a_web/51?e=1238403/11781246
Texas Tech University College of Architecture and the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (LHUCA) announce Land Arts 2014 Exhibition. An opening reception will take place from 6-9 p.m. April 3, 2015 at the LHUCA Warehouses at 1001 Mac Davis Lane in Lubbock, Texas.
The exhibition culminates the semester-long transdisciplinary field program Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech in the College of Architecture and presents documents, objects and constructions architecture graduate students Michael Norris, Gabriela Reyes, and Anthony Zuefeldt with artists J. Eric Simpson and Rhode Island School of Design alumna Matti Sloman.
Chris Taylor, director of Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech, leads the program and was assisted in the field by Ted Carey from Land Arts 2013, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of the Arts. Land Arts 2014 field season was made possible with generous operational support from Andrea Nasher and student support from the James Family Foundation.
Students traveled 6,000 miles visiting locations across the Southwest camping for two months as they explored natural and human forces that shape contemporary landscapes—ranging from geology and weather to cigarette butts and hydroelectric dams. The itinerary included: White Sands, Cebolla Canyon, Jackpile Mine, Laguna Pueblo, Chaco Canyon, Muley Point, Moon House, Green River, Spiral Jetty, Sun Tunnels, Wendover – CLUI, Double Negative, Las Vegas Piece, North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Cabinetlandia, Mimbres River, Chiricahua Mountains, Dipping Vat Tank, Plains of San Agustin, Very Large Array, The Lightning Field, Marfa, Adobe Alliance and Lubbock.
The exhibition will open with a reception on Friday, 3 April 2015 from 6 – 9 pm during the First Friday Art Trail. The exhibition will be on view Saturday afternoons from noon to 4pm and by appointment through Friday, 1 May 2015 when the exhibition will close with another First Friday Art Trail reception. To set up an appointment contact Chris Taylor by phone at 806-834-1589 or by email at chris.taylor@ttu.edu.
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About Land Arts
Land Arts of the American West is a field program investigating the intersection of geomorphology and human construction. Land art or earthworks begin with the land and extend through the complex social and ecological processes that create landscape. Encompassing constructions that range from petroglyphs to roads, dwellings, monuments and traces of those actions, earthworks show us who we are. Examining gestures small and grand, Land Arts directs our attention from potsherd, cigarette butt, and track in the sand, to human settlements, monumental artworks, and military-industrial installations. Land Arts is a semester abroad in our own back yard investigating the American landscape through immersion, action and reflection.
Land Arts 2014 field season at Texas Tech was made possible with generous operational support from Andrea Nasher and student support from the James Family Foundation. The 2014 field crew included four architecture graduate students and one artist with a Master of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design. Future years will continue to broaden the transdisciplinary involvement from students across the Texas Tech community and participants from outside the university.
About the College of Architecture
The College of Architecture at Texas Tech University is located in Lubbock where architectural education has been offered since 1927. The college includes 650 undergraduate, graduate and PhD students and 50 faculty members. Graduate certificate programs are offered in Historic Preservation, Visualization, Community Design, Rural Health Care Design, and Digital Design Fabrication, as well as an interdisciplinary doctoral program in Land-Use Planning, Management, and Design. To extend the academic offerings on campus every undergraduate student participates in directed summer study abroad offerings in places such as Paris, Seoul, Seville, Valparaiso and Verona. The presence of Land Arts within the college expands the range of field study connecting teaching and research directly to landscapes we inhabit.
About the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts
The mission of the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts is to inspire and enrich our community by being a catalyst for the arts. Celebrating eleven years of serving our community, LHUCA is proud to announce this fabulous addition of the Warehouses on Mac Davis Lane and Studio Flats as part of the expanding LHUCA Campus. Our campus, located on a two city block area of downtown Lubbock, is the heart of the cultural district. The campus includes the FireHouse Building with a state-of-the-art theatre and four exhibition galleries, the Helen DeVitt Jones Clay Studio, and the IceHouse that provides rehearsal, event and gallery spaces. The Graffiti Building, equipped with a classroom and teaching gallery space, will open in April of this year. The newly acquired Warehouses will provide alternative exhibition and studio spaces for creative works that reach beyond the traditional gallery presentation. Land Arts 2014 Exhibition will continue to demonstrate the flexible use of this space and serve as a magnet for the cultural growth and educational dialog between creator and viewer. The Board of Trustees and staff of LHUCA invite you to join us in celebrating the redevelopment and renovation of the cultural heart of Lubbock.
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If you would like more information about Land Arts or to schedule an interview with Chris Taylor contact him by phone at 806-834-1589 or by email at chris.taylor@ttu.edu. Additional information about the College of Architecture is at http://arch.ttu.edu, and the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts at http://lhuca.org.
Image: Above Double Negative, Mormon Mesa, Nevada, 18 September 2014, by Chris Taylor.
Land Arts of the American West is participating in the TX★13 Texas Biennial by submitting special reports during our 2013 field season. Daily posts will be created by the participants from anything they are working on that day or from the past. Posts will go online when we have signal. All posts can be viewed here and from the rotation schedule below.
Ted Carey — 5 Sept 2013 — Goblin Valley
Jennifer Elsner — 6 Sept 2013 — Rozel Point
Kyle Griesmeyer — 7 Sept 2013 — Rozel Point
Bristen Lee Phillips — 8 Sept 2013 — Wendover
Jana La Brasca — 9 Sept 2013 — Wendover
Jaclyn Pryor– 10 Sept 2013 — Wendover
Ted Carey — 11 Sept 2013 — Wendover
Jennifer Elsner — 12 Sept 2013 — Wendover
Kyle Griesmeyer — 13 Sept 2013 — Wendover
Bristen Lee Phillips — 14 Sept 2013 — Wendover
Jana La Brasca — 15 Sept 2013 — Mormon Mesa
Jaclyn Pryor– 16 Sept 2013 — Mormon Mesa
Ted Carey — 17 Sept 2013 — Mormon Mesa
Jennifer Elsner — 18 Sept 2013 — Point Sublime
Kyle Griesmeyer — 19 Sept 2013 — Point Sublime
Bristen Lee Phillips — 20 Sept 2013 — Point Sublime
Jana La Brasca — 21 Sept 2013 — Cebolla Canyon
Jaclyn Pryor– 22 Sept 2013 — Jackpile Mine / Madrid
Ted Carey — 23 Sept 2013 — Lubbock
Jennifer Elsner — 2 Oct 2013 — Marfa
Kyle Griesmeyer — 3 Oct 2013 — Marfa
Bristen Lee Phillips — 4 Oct 2013 — Marfa
Jana La Brasca — 5 Oct 2013 — Marfa
Jaclyn Pryor– 6 Oct 2013 — Marfa
Ted Carey — 7 Oct 2013 — Hueco Tanks
Jennifer Elsner — 8 Oct 2013 — Hueco Tanks
Kyle Griesmeyer — 9 Oct 2013 — Cabinetlandia
Bristen Lee Phillips — 10 Oct 2013 — Cabinetlandia
Jana La Brasca — 11 Oct 2013 — Cabinetlandia
Jaclyn Pryor– 12 Oct 2013 — Cabinetlandia
Ted Carey — 13 Oct 2013 — Plains of San Agustin
Jennifer Elsner — 14 Oct 2013 — Plains of San Agustin
Kyle Griesmeyer — 15 Oct 2013 — Plains of San Agustin
Bristen Lee Phillips — 16 Oct 2013 — Plains of San Agustin
Jana La Brasca — 17 Oct 2013 — Plains of San Agustin
Jaclyn Pryor– 18 Oct 2013 — Plains of San Agustin
Ted Carey — 19 Oct 2013 — Mimbres River
Jennifer Elsner — 20 Oct 2013 — Mimbres River
Kyle Griesmeyer — 21 Oct 2013 — Mimbres River
Bristen Lee Phillips — 22 Oct 2013 — Mimbres River
Jana La Brasca — 23 Oct 2013 — Chiricahua Mountains
Jaclyn Pryor– 24 Oct 2013 — Chiricahua Mountains
Ted Carey — 25 Oct 2013 — Chiricahua Mountains
Jennifer Elsner — 26 Oct 2013 — Chiricahua Mountains
Kyle Griesmeyer — 27 Oct 2013 — Twin Buttes
Bristen Lee Phillips — 28 Oct 2013 — Twin Buttes
Jana La Brasca — 29 Oct 2013 — Lubbock
Full listing of posts at https://landarts.org/category/field-reports/2013-texas-biennial/
Chris Taylor to lecture at Virginia Commonwealth University
Lecture by Chris Taylor
Thursday 21 March 2013 at 4:30pm
Commons Theater
Virginia Commonwealth University
School of the Arts
Department of Graphic Design
325 N. Harrison Street
Richmond, VA 23284
Taylor will talk about the embodied experience accumulated within the last ten years of Land Arts of the American West, the transdisciplinary field program he directs at Texas Tech University that investigates the intersection of human construction and the evolving shape of the planet. Land art or earthworks begin with the land and extend through the complex social and ecological processes that create landscape. Encompassing constructions that range from petroglyphs to roads, dwellings, monuments and traces of those actions, earthworks show us who we are. Examining gestures small and grand, Land Arts directs our attention from potsherd, cigarette butt, and track in the sand, to human settlements, monumental artworks, and military-industrial installations. Land Arts is a semester abroad in our own back yard investigating the American landscape through immersion, action and reflection.
Embodied Exploration with Land Arts of the American West
Lecture by Chris Taylor
Tuesday 12 February 2013 at 6:30pm
Education Building (EDU) TECO room 103
School of Architecture and Community Design
University of South Florida
Tampa, Florida
Taylor will talk about the embodied experience accumulated within the last ten years of Land Arts of the American West, the transdisciplinary field program he directs at Texas Tech University that investigates the intersection of human construction and the evolving shape of the planet. Land art or earthworks begin with the land and extend through the complex social and ecological processes that create landscape. Encompassing constructions that range from petroglyphs to roads, dwellings, monuments and traces of those actions, earthworks show us who we are. Examining gestures small and grand, Land Arts directs our attention from potsherd, cigarette butt, and track in the sand, to human settlements, monumental artworks, and military-industrial installations. Land Arts is a semester abroad in our own back yard investigating the American landscape through immersion, action and reflection.
Texas Tech University College of Architecture and the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (LHUCA) announce Land Arts 2012 Exhibition. An opening reception will take place from 6-9 p.m. April 5, 2013 at the LHUCA Warehouses at 1001 Mac Davis Lane in Lubbock, Texas.
The exhibition culminates the semester-long transdisciplinary field program Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech in the College of Architecture and presents documents, objects and constructions by Zoe Berg (art student at University of Texas at Austin), Katy Chrisler (poet with MFA from Writer’s Workshop at University of Iowa), Cade Hammers (architecture student at Texas Tech), Luis Martín Medina (architecture student at Texas Tech), Maura Murnane (New York based artist), Colleen O’Brien (art student at Texas Tech), Jigga Patel (architecture student at Texas Tech), Nicholas Pierce (poetry and creative writing student at Texas Tech), Arie Ruvinsky (artist with BFA from Goldsmiths/University of London), Cecilia Stewart (architecture student at Texas Tech).
Chris Taylor, director of Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech, leads the program and was assisted in the field by Texas Tech alumni Jose Villanueva. Land Arts 2012 field season was made possible with generous operational support from Andrea Nasher and student support from the James Family Foundation.
Students traveled 6,000 miles visiting locations across the Southwest camping for two months as they explored natural and human forces that shape contemporary landscapes—ranging from geology and weather to cigarette butts and hydroelectric dams. The itinerary included: White Sands, Jackpile Mine, Laguna Pueblo, Chaco Canyon, Muley Point, Moon House, Bingham Canyon Mine, Spiral Jetty, Sun Tunnels, Center for Land Use Interpretation Wendover, Double Negative, North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Galisteo, Marfa, Cabinetlandia, Gila Hot Springs, Mimbres River, Chiricahua Mountains, Coolidge Dam on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, Plains of San Agustin, Very Large Array, and The Lightning Field.
The exhibition will open with a reception on Friday, 5 April 2013 from 6 – 9 pm in conjunction with the First Friday Art Trail. The exhibition will be on view Saturday afternoons from noon to 4pm and by appointment through Friday, 3 May 2013 when the exhibition will close with another First Friday Art Trail reception. To set up an appointment contact Chris Taylor by phone at 806-392-6147 or by email at chris.taylor@ttu.edu.
—–
About Land Arts
Land Arts of the American West is a field program investigating the intersection of geomorphology and human construction. Land art or earthworks begin with the land and extend through the complex social and ecological processes that create landscape. Encompassing constructions that range from petroglyphs to roads, dwellings, monuments and traces of those actions, earthworks show us who we are. Examining gestures small and grand, Land Arts directs our attention from potsherd, cigarette butt, and track in the sand, to human settlements, monumental artworks, and military-industrial installations. Land Arts is a semester abroad in our own back yard investigating the American landscape through immersion, action and reflection.
Land Arts of the American West operates autonomously from the University of New Mexico College of Fine Arts and theTexas Tech University College of Architecture. Land Arts 2012 field season at Texas Tech was made possible with generous operational support from Andrea Nasher and student support from the James Family Foundation.
The 2012 Texas Tech field crew was composed of four architecture, four art, and two poetry students. Future years will continue to broaden the interdisciplinary involvement from students across the Texas Tech community and participants from outside the university.
About the College of Architecture
The College of Architecture at Texas Tech University is located in Lubbock where architectural education has been offered since 1927. The college includes 850 undergraduate, graduate and PhD students and 50 faculty members. Graduate certificate programs are offered in Historic Preservation, Visualization, Community Design, Rural Health Care Design, and Digital Design Fabrication, as well as an interdisciplinary doctoral program in Land-Use Planning, Management, and Design. To extend the academic offerings on campus every undergraduate student participates in directed summer study abroad offerings in places such as Montreal, Paris, Seville, Valparaiso and Verona. The presence of Land Arts within the college expands the range of field study connecting teaching and research directly to landscapes we inhabit.
About the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts
The mission of the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts is to inspire and enrich our community by being a catalyst for the arts. Celebrating eleven years of serving our community, LHUCA is proud to announce this fabulous addition of the Warehouses on Mac Davis Lane and Studio Flats as part of the expanding LHUCA Campus. Our campus, located on a two city block area of downtown Lubbock, is the heart of the cultural district. The campus includes the FireHouse Building with a state-of-the-art theatre and four exhibition galleries, the Helen DeVitt Jones Clay Studio, and the IceHouse that provides rehearsal, event and gallery spaces. The Graffiti Building, equipped with a classroom and teaching gallery space, will open in April of this year. The newly acquired Warehouses will provide alternative exhibition and studio spaces for creative works that reach beyond the traditional gallery presentation. Land Arts 2012 Exhibition will continue to demonstrate the flexible use of this space and serve as a magnet for the cultural growth and educational dialog between creator and viewer. The Board of Trustees and staff of LHUCA invite you to join us in celebrating the redevelopment and renovation of the cultural heart of Lubbock.
###
If you would like more information about Land Arts or to schedule an interview with Chris Taylor contact him by phone at 806-392-6147 or by email at chris.taylor@ttu.edu. Additional information about the College of Architecture can be found by contacting Jess Schwintz at 806-742-3169, ext. 247 or visiting http://arch.ttu.edu, and the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts by visiting http://lhuca.org.
Image: Working at the Spiral Jetty, Rozel Point, Utah, 9 Sep 2012, by Chris Taylor.
Texas Tech University College of Architecture and the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (LHUCA) announce Land Arts 2011 Exhibition. An opening reception will take place from 6-9 p.m. April 6, 2012 at the new LHUCA Warehouses at 1001 Mac Davis Lane in Lubbock, Texas.
The exhibition culminates the semester-long transdisciplinary field program Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech in the College of Architecture and presents documents, objects and constructions by students Alexander Bingham, Luis Bustamante III, Will Cotton, Winston Holloway, Richard Klaja, Celeste Martinez, Zachary Mitchell, Carl Spartz, Rachael Wilson, and Bethany Wood. Chris Taylor, director of Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech, leads the program and was assisted in the field by Texas Tech alumni Adrian Larriva. Students traveled 6,000 miles visiting locations across the Southwest camping for two months as they explored natural and human forces that shape contemporary landscapes—ranging from geology and weather to cigarette butts and hydroelectric dams. Land Arts 2011 field season was made possible with generous operational support from Andrea Nasher and student support from the James Family Foundation.
The exhibition will open with a reception on Friday, 6 April 2012 from 6 – 9 pm in conjunction with the First Friday Art Trail. The exhibition will be on view through 28 April 2012 on Saturday afternoons from noon to 4pm and by appointment. To set up an appointment contact Chris Taylor by phone at 806-392-6147 or by email at chris.taylor@ttu.edu.
—–
About Land Arts
Land Arts of the American West is a field program investigating the intersection of geomorphology and human construction. Land art or earthworks begin with the land and extend through the complex social and ecological processes that create landscape. Encompassing constructions that range from petroglyphs to roads, dwellings, monuments and traces of those actions, earthworks show us who we are. Examining gestures small and grand, Land Arts directs our attention from potsherd, cigarette butt, and track in the sand, to human settlements, monumental artworks, and military-industrial installations. Land Arts is a semester abroad in our own back yard investigating the American landscape through immersion, action and reflection.
Land Arts of the American West operates autonomously from the University of New Mexico College of Fine Arts and theTexas Tech University College of Architecture. Land Arts 2010 field season at Texas Tech was made possible with generous operational support from Andrea Nasher and student support from the James Family Foundation.
The 2011 Texas Tech field crew was composed of art and architecture students from Texas Tech. Future years will continue to broaden the transdisciplinary involvement from students across the Texas Tech community and participants from outside the university. The 2011 field itinerary included: White Sands, Chaco Canyon, Jackpile Mine, Laguna Pueblo, The Roden Crater Project, Double Negative, Sun Tunnels, Spiral Jetty, Bingham Canyon MIne, Center for Land Use Interpretation Wendover, Muley Point, Moon House, Marfa, Valentine, Cabinetlandia, Gila Hot Springs, Mimbres River, Chiricahua Mountains, Coolidge Dam on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, Plains of San Agustin, Very Large Array, and The Lightning Field.
About the College of Architecture
The College of Architecture at Texas Tech University is located in Lubbock where architectural education has been offered since 1927. The college includes 850 undergraduate, graduate and PhD students and 50 faculty members. Graduate certificate programs are offered in Historic Preservation, Visualization, Community Design, Rural Health Care Design, and Digital Design Fabrication, as well as an interdisciplinary doctoral program in Land-Use Planning, Management, and Design. To extend the academic offerings on campus every undergraduate student participates in directed summer study abroad offerings in places such as Montreal, Paris, Seville, Valparaiso and Verona. The presence of Land Arts within the college expands the range of field study connecting teaching and research directly to landscapes we inhabit.
About the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts
The mission of the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts is to inspire and enrich our community by being a catalyst for the arts. Celebrating eleven years of serving our community, LHUCA is proud to announce this fabulous addition of the Warehouses on Mac Davis Lane and Studio Flats as part of the expanding LHUCA Campus. Our campus, located on a two city block area of downtown Lubbock, is the heart of the cultural district. The campus includes the FireHouse Building with a state-of-the-art theatre and four exhibition galleries, the Helen DeVitt Jones Clay Studio, and the IceHouse that provides rehearsal, event and gallery spaces. The Graffiti Building, equipped with a classroom and teaching gallery space, will open in April of this year. The newly acquired Warehouses will provide alternative exhibition and studio spaces for creative works that reach beyond the traditional gallery presentation. Land Arts 2010 Exhibition will demonstrate the flexible use of this space and serve as a magnet for the cultural growth and educational dialog between creator and viewer. The Board of Trustees and staff of LHUCA invite you to join us in celebrating the redevelopment and renovation of the cultural heart of Lubbock.
###
If you would like more information about Land Arts or to schedule an interview with Chris Taylor contact him by phone at 806-392-6147 or by email at chris.taylor@ttu.edu. Additional information about the College of Architecture can be found by contacting Jess Schwintz at 806-742-3169, ext. 247 or visiting http://arch.ttu.edu, and the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts by visiting http://lhuca.org.
Pacific Northwest College of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Craft are presenting a lecture by Chris Taylor on Wednesday 22 February 2012 at 6:30pm in Portland, Oregon. The lecture “Testing Perceptual Thresholds with Land Arts of the American West” will discuss the embodied knowledge acquired through years of field experience. Details at http://cal.pnca.edu/events/266.
Land Arts 2011 at Texas Tech concluded its second journey on Monday 24 October 2011 with the sense of purpose and dedication it began in late August due in large part to the dedicated participants: Alexander Bingham, Luis Bustamante III, Will Cotton, Winston Holloway, Richard Klaja, Celeste Martinez, Zachary Mitchell, Carl Spartz, Rachael Wilson, and Bethany Wood. Adrian Larriva (Land Arts 2009 Alum and TTU MARCH graduate) proved pivotal as the Land Arts Program Assistant, and Chris Taylor continues to direct the program at Texas Tech.
Breaks between journeys always alternate between not enough time for necessary correspondence, bill paying, and deep cleaning, and too much time away from the immediacy of working and living in the field. Everyone was eager to return to the patina of the road as we ventured through West Texas to begin a slower pace voyage with a focus on sites to make work. We were out for twenty-five days and traveled around 2,500 miles overland. During that time we were visited by outstanding field guests: Design Build Adventure founder Jack Sanders, West Texas living legend and artist Boyd Elder, Land Arts 2009 alum Jose Villanueva, and PORK New Orleans designer and educator David Gregor.
Our second journey began in Marfa, Texas with the legacy of Donald Judd through visits to the Judd Foundation and the Chinati Foundation. A healthy wind storm also greeted our return, snapping a weak tie down strap and flipping the kitchen tent. Nothing major was lost and we were able to quickly reset camp. Jack Sanders met us in Marfa to tell us about the evolutionary design and construction processes developing El Cosmico. Learning first hand we also invested our efforts in the process by helping establish newly planted trees.
From Marfa we made the short trip west to Valentine where Boyd Elder and Jose Villanueva were waiting. Boyd’s family goes back to the origins of this small West Texas town and in recent years an old dance hall from the late nineteenth century has come under his care. While the building, called the Saloone (read Sa-loan), needs a great deal of work, it’s thick adobe shell is worthy of attention. Jose has been working with Boyd to get the project moving and lending the collective shoulder of Land Arts added to the momentum. The students got their hands dirty repairing adobe and adding mud plaster to stave off future erosion using a recipe with cactus juice and horse dung from Ron Rael. It was three days of serious work. On our way out of Valentine we visited Prada Marfa with Boyd in the early morning light.
En route to our next site we stopped in El Paso for supplies and to attend a fiesta for the students hosted by Jesse and Irma Larriva. This is the third year the Larriva’s have welcomed Land Arts into their home, fortunately this year Robert Gonzales, Director of the Texas Tech College of Architecture El Paso program was able to participate. On the road again, we rolled into Cabinetlandia at sun set as a cold front blew in. Rain to our east and west dropped the temperature precipitously and the stiff wind filled air, tents, and lungs with dust. The fierce weather broke quickly leaving us clear skies and cold nights.
Cabinetlandia is a project space of Brooklyn based Cabinet magazine and site of the Cabinet National Library. Located within the failed Deming Ranchettes development between Interstate 10 and a major east-west route of the Southern Pacific Railroad the site is an outstanding laboratory to explore and test the ongoing Land Arts conversation unfolding through our regular seminars.
David Gregor joined us at Cabinetlandia to share the aerial photographic techniques he used last summer in China. From New Orleans he brought a kite for sending a camera aloft, a sixteen foot tall stick for elevated points of view, and a series of influential books to share with the students. David was very generous with his deep connection to the land art sites throughout the American West and his reading of the priorities facing design, art and architecture education today.
With our fill of fine Chihuahuan Desert scrubland dust we said farewell to David and ventured into Deming to resupply our food stocks and do a bit of laundry. From there we turned north heading into the Gila Wilderness—straight to the Gila River and hot springs to extend the much needed cleaning. After a brief soaking we returned south to set camp along the banks of the Mimbres River. This was another work site and the students pursued their projects immediately. From hands on fabrication to various levels of mapping this was a very productive place.
On the road again we passed through Silver City then southwest out of the mountains. Mining casts a long shadow across our itinerary and we stopped for lunch at the beleaguered interpretive overlook of the Tyrone Tailings Reclamation.
Next, a site near the top of the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona allowed us to experience how sky islands operate in the desert. We also gained first hand knowledge of the impact of last May’s Horseshoe Two Fire that badly burnt the Chiricahua Mountains shifting the focus of this site from work to interpretation. All structured campgrounds around Barfoot peak were closed. Fortunately our regular site did not burn completely and was safe to use. Students worked to make sense of the effects of drought, land use policy that minimizes sustainable cycles of fire, increased human interaction in fragile ecological territories, and shifting climatic patterns. Lessons were palpable in what came back from their excursions and folded directly into their work.
We extended the route to our final camp to rejoin the Gila River and follow it to the Coolidge Dam on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona. We stopped for lunch at this fantastic dome and buttress structure built in the late 1920’s. At Globe we turned onto Highway 60 heading north through the Salt River canyon and then east through Show Low, Springerville and Quemado. Working against the path of the sun we rolled into our camp on the edge of the Plains of San Agustin in New Mexico just as the last light was leaving the sky. The well seasoned crew set camp and started making dinner in no time.
The next day the group split in two so we could visit The Lightning Field by Walter di Maria. On the way we visited the Very Large Array to ponder astronomers making images with what they hear from deep space. Photography of The Lightning Field is still not permitted and both groups had outstanding visits indexing the daily balance of light with our senses.
Highway 52, the dirt road running along the east edge of the Plains of San Agustin and near our camp was busy with hunters pushing south into the Gila Wilderness for the beginning of elk season. It also seemed to bring poachers of pronghorn antelope as we witnessed a drive by kill site and found twelve abandoned legs. The spirits in the camp remained strong as we neared the completion of our field season and students focus on their work deepened.
With the first clouds we’d seen in two weeks it was time to load up. A bit dirtier and worn down, we packed into the vans one more time and rolled towards home, to clean up, and, to eat Los Tacos in east Lubbock. Now the students are completing their work on campus for the end of the semester critique on December 7, 2011 and the Land Arts 2011 Exhibition at the LHUCA Warehouses in Lubbock from April 7 to May 4, 2012.
A select group of images from Journey 2 are included below and more are available in the Field Reports section of this site. Our complete itinerary is online at Land Arts 2011 Itinerary.
Collecting mulch for the new trees at El Cosmico, Marfa, Texas.
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