My Trip to the Spiral Jetty

"Do you always live your life like The New Yorker travelogue?" was Ben's comment about my recent 40hour adventure in Salt Lake City. I guess that packing in art, skiing, music and IKEA warrants that. The inspiration to hop in the minivan and drive 6 hours to SLC was to experience in person Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty. It just so happened that the spring skiing at Snow Basin was amazing, Ivan Neville was funking SLC up with his Dumpstafunk band, and I really needed a couch from IKEA. Luckily all these elements led me to convince a friend who happens to have a huge truck to join me, because the hour-dirtroad-trek off the highway out to the jetty itself would have destroyed my van.

If you've visited our blog before, you might know that I have talked about the Spiral Jetty, in fact it was the inspiration for my very first blog here! It is an earthwork of major influence and proportions. I fell in love with this piece of art 18 years ago in an art history class, but had only seen photos of it. Over the last 40 years, the Jetty has experienced varying degrees of exposure based on the rising and falling levels of the Lake. Having experienced quite a drought recently, it has been exposed and accessible for the last five years. The difficulties in getting there of course are a part of the experience and I can imagine that for someone coming from an urban area the remoteness of it must be intense. Unfortunately, the very essence of the piece itself which is so site-specific is threatened by proposed oil exploration nearby. You can learn more about this and what you can do by visiting the DIA Foundation website and my earlier blog.

So how was it? Like visiting an old friend. I walked the 1500feet to the center of the spiral and breathed in the energy. The center turn of the spiral is now solid salt. The rocks are covered in crystals and salty foam blows by my feet. The water surrounding the spiral is also very surreal. Filled with brine shrimp and minerals, it is varying shades of red and purple. It's water, but it seems to be moving in a slow, viscous manner. Turn, and walk the spiral back out and a journey of rebirth has been made. Words flood my brain: calming, meditative, inspiring, hostile, solitary,an amazing interactive of solid and liquid,pilgrimage, mythological, infinite,enigma.

I love this bit from Smithson."I was slipping out of myself again, dissolving into a unicellular beginning, trying to locate the nucleus at the end of the spiral" (Holt 1979)

As we drove the pitted road back out to go rip up the slopes at Snow Basin, we passed a rental car with a well-dressed and wide-eyed couple inside. Art-lovers on a pilgrimage? Must have been because there is no other reason to be out in that environment in that low, little car. I wondered what they were thinking, what their experience would be. Would they make it out of there without a flat tire or broken axle? Did they buy the insurance on the car? How out of their element are they putting themselves in order to experience this piece of art? And I applauded their dedication.