December 2004		Vol.23 No.10
A publication of the International Sculpture Center

Micki Yoshimoto, an artist and writer who lives in San Francisco, California, was a participant in the Spiral Jetty Weekend sponsored by the International Sculpture Center and Salt Lake Art Center. For more on the Spiral Jetty Weekend see the article in the December 2004 issue of Sculpture Magazine.

I approached Gate #6 after standing in a seemingly endless security line and was reminded of the likely chance of encountering other “Smithsonites” and Jetty groupies roaming around the airport waiting for the next flight out to Salt Lake City. I quickly scanned the waiting room but did not recognize anyone: these were not artsy types. Most were dressed in shorts and T-shirts, casual but not fashionable. “It’s a USC game,” I overheard someone say, which explained why the flight was so overbooked. I endured the entire 1.5 hours in my cramped seat, leaning out into the aisle in order to read the paper. So far, there was nothing spiritual of pilgrimage-like about this trip, and I started to feel as though I had raised my expectations too high until we landed and I stepped out of the airport into the blinding desert sun. In the distance loomed a jagged mountain range that contrasted starkly with the sterile interior of the terminal. A hot dry wind swept across the parking lot, and Itasted the first dose of what may have attracted the elusive Smithson here in the first place.

The next day, we were told that it would be a two-hour drive to the Jetty, so there was plenty of time to relax in the van, maybe even enough to take a nap. However, as soon as we turned off the main highway, the smooth asphalt turned into gravel and the journey suddenly became palpable. The dust storm kicked up by the van as we headed toward Rosel Point, now only about half an hour away, recalled not only the film Spiral Jetty, but words from the night before attesting to Smithson’s interest in “collapsed systems.” We had traveled not only in distance but in time, from a modern, well- maintained road to an undeveloped, rugged terrain. We had entered a time warp and an indeterminable space bound by sky, water, and mountains.

It seemed only natural to approach the Jetty from above. That is, we would hike from the parking area up the basalt-laden mountainside to its ridge, where Spiral Jetty would come into view for the first time, like an apparition in an inland sea. The relentless wind combined with the unforgiving sun offered enough resistance to throw me off balance from time to time, and what seemed like a moderate hike turned into a bit of a challenge. As I rose above the salt beds, from the corner of my eyes I caught a glimpse of a spiral extending out like an appendage of the surrounding land. The water level had fallen so low that the entire Jetty was exposed and accessible on foot; but far more remarkable was the shimmering white coat of crystals it had acquired over the course of its 24-year hibernation, which concealed the natural black color of the basalt. Salt, snow, sand-the composition was unrecognizable from such a height, but the effect was stunning nonetheless, and I found myself being seduced by its undeniable allure. It was precisely form this precipice that Spiral Jetty entered the realm of the sublime, giving new meaning to the term “unfathomable.”

The choppy waters of the lake lapped at its frosty shores in shades of crimson, indigo, and azure blue. While the Jetty remained still, everything around it moved at a rapid speed. One could not discern whether the spiral protruded or receded---all sense of scale and depth had collapsed into a single plane. As I began my descent, the spiral gradually expanded before my eyes: what had appeared flat and weightless a moment ago now assumed dimensionality and mass. I practically ran the rest of the way down, eager to set foot on what resembled earth’s giant umbilical cord still frozen in a primordial coil, unwilling to let go.

Stepping onto the bed of white crystals was like walking on the moon. Everything seemed to be in slow motion, enveloped in a blinding white light of such intensity that it burned though my sunglasses right to the cornea. Just beyond the Jetty, sea-foam collected at the edge of the salt beds and broke away in clusters that either hovered gently across the lake like cotton candy or drifted away with the current like pieces of an iceberg. “Dream-like,” hallucinatory” and “surreal” were not exaggerations in the least, but words did not even come close to expressing the moment at hand. As I stood at its center, I remained fixed on the rocky point like an axis around which the earth rotated, following the elegant curves of the spiral. Then it seemed as though the spiral itself began to spin, while the world around it remained motionless. What appeared to be the end of the coil was now the beginning, forward motion was now backwards, and what had been folding in was now unfolding. I closed my eyes and allowed the elements to move through me. We were all there for one thing only - to see Spiral Jetty in its natural setting. Its sublime nature owed something to the mystique surrounding its re-emergence, to what it had evolved into after so many years underwater. The Jetty had become a phenomenon embedded into the landscape of the Salt Lake Basin and consequently a permanent extension of the land mass. Its location was no accident and no coincidence, for Smithson had deliberately chosen the site and planned its construction so that the Jetty would age and erode together with the topography that shaped it.

The next morning, at the Southwest departure gate, I asked from which side of the plane one could see Spiral Jetty. I was secretly pleased to see the puzzled expression on the young man’s face, a clear indication that he had no clue. I was once again squeezed in between the USC Trojans with hardly space to breathe. But this time, as I looked down at my salt-encrusted shoes, I was glowing with a sense of fulfillment in knowing I was one of the few who had made this unique pilgrimage.

-- Miki Yoshimoto <Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970. Earthwork in the Great Salt Lake, Utah. All photos taken in September, 2004>