Naked in Death Valley
Some facts, notes, data, information, statistics, and statements on the hot spring at Lake Tecopa. The post Naked in Death Valley appeared first on Guernica.
by Claire Vaye Watkins
May 07, 2018
4 minutes
Illustration: Jia Sung.
—for “The Lightening Field,” a land-art work in New Mexico, by sculptor Walter De Maria
The Hot Spring at Lake Tecopa is an impermanent work.
The land is not the setting for the work but a part of the work.
A spring is not a pool but a process.
Heat is the method by which the water pulls us back into our bodies.
The work is an attempt to know that which gives Death Valley its name. Practically speaking this is not possible.
The lava is as important as the water.
The sum of the facts does not constitute the work or determine its esthetics.
No sentence or group of sentences can completely represent The Tecopa.
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