James Turrell

James Turrell is an earth/land artist born in 1943 in Pasadena California. At the age of 16 he became a pilot licensed and flew supplies to miners.He has also built small planes. He has taken many photographs from the air of the Arizona desert. He is a perceptual phycologist who studies different dimensions. He has spent the last 30 years of his life building an observatory. The observatory is inside of Roden Crater. It is located in the Arizona desert in Flagstaff where many other unactive volcanos reside. He had to live in a house near the crater for two years. It is very desolate and the roads are dirt. He has spent millions of dollars to shape the crater. There are tunnels entering the base of the crater that are layed out like finely tuned optical instruments. At the end of the tunnel is a key hole of light and then the sky leading to the inside of the crater. The construction crew has shaped the bowl of the crater perfectly smooth and round. He is creating a temple of light. His light installations are in Germany and Sweden. The material he works with is the light. He has an incredible skill of capturing the light and confusing the eye so that one does'nt know if he is in the light or outside of the light. The light creates a misty feel and plays on the surfaces. He can make something flat into something 3-D with the light. In 2003 Henry Art Gallery installed a permanent Sky Space installation by Turrell. Over 50 homes have these sky spaces for meditatian. The rooms are closed with a hole in the cieling to see the heavens. The light changes color inside these domes and fools the eye. Turrell says that he feeds on the light because it is vital to our bodies to produce vitamin D.