I have been long fascinated with Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, as an artwork and how other artists have dealt with and been inspired by it and how it has been referenced as a device in observing change. When I visited it for the first time I saw and experienced something I did not expect. It was this unexpectedness that prompted me to photograph its surrounding surface.
As you drive along a dirt road to a dirt lot, your first visual of the Jetty is from above looking down at it. The environment in and around it looks desolate and identical, that is until you begin to descend down onto the dry lakebed where the Jetty lies. Sand, mud and rock make up the majority of the earthwork but outside its perimeter, the surface that is deceivingly dull and similar in all directions from above is quite the opposite.
Upon closer inspection, the surface is diverse in look and feel and can change from one step to the next - there was something new and unexpected to stumble upon. Seemingly lifeless, the harsh landscape is full of activity.