What amazing things you got to see! It sounds like it was a really great time. I would love to have such an escape from life and work right now. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for reading! and for commenting. We did indeed see and do some amazingly wonderful stuff. Like I said, I feel almost embarrassed at what a privilige it was (without wanting to be sound mealy mouthed)...
I’m so glad you pointed me to your essay, Jennifer. Reading it, I felt like I was there with you. And I also felt the sharp contrast—how I wasn’t. That old longing stirred again—the longing to be anywhere but here. To be in a space where something like that breathtaking, expansive art is even possible.
Because honestly, in Germany, I don’t feel that space. Not physically. Not mentally. There’s little openness to allow something so monumental to be installed in a landscape that looks empty only at first glance—and yet holds everything. Maybe we just don’t have those wide, open places. The ones where you can be alone and see for miles, without a fence, a house, a tree, a forest, or a hill in your line of sight.
Where I live, everything feels miniature. Confined. Compressed. And with that comes rigidity, order, regulation—walls, both literal and invisible. There’s no space to expand beyond the horizon. Not in the landscape, and even less so in the minds of most people around me.
And yet—I’m someone constantly spilling over borders and edges. I don’t fit in forms or spaces built to contain. So when I imagine standing there where you stood, something in me exhales. My heart grows wide. My soul sighs out. My mind softens into that openness.
That’s when it becomes a soul service station for me too. Not just art, but a place that nourishes every part of me—soul, mind, heart, and body.
As I said, my heart doesn’t beat German. It beats North American. And I’m not trying to romanticize—I’m just telling the truth of where it comes alive.
You seem to have drunk in the art - and the landscape - as much as if you had been there. I am so glad that the essay opened this up for you and so sorry that you feel confined in your everyday. The sky is definitely bigger there, something to do with being at sea level and the mountains that surround the desert rising so abruptly and massively. It feels epic, a widescreen movie of a landscape, in technicolour. There is room to breathe and dream for sure. And the artworks are like prompts along the way. I'm not sure I could live there though, not now. Not enough clear space or clarity away from those spaces. Mountainous supermarkets, acres of food outlets, mile high burgers - stretch between. There is a price to pay.
Jennifer, I know, I have driven through those landscapes in 1997 on my epic 2.5 month Roadtrip by Greyhound from San Francisco, down to San Diego, and all the way over to Key West and all the way back to San Francisco. And I stopped a Palm Springs. I saw and felt that landscape. Why do you think I write so much about the Canyonlands and the wide open spaces. Because I still know how I felt. There have been other landscapes, the Northern Cape of South Africa especially, that had the same feel. And Yes, it is epic and I am so grateful you pointed me to your essay. And that Art? Wow! Chef’s Kiss, indeed.
Wow - that was a massive trip. I experienced that 'big sky' feel when I lived in the Gers in France about an hour from the Pyrenees - very flat until you reached the base of the mountains that then shot up. Must have something to do with that juxtaposition.
Jennifer, in the Kalahari Desert there are no mountains—just vast open space. For me, it’s less about elevation and more about the seemingly uninhabited expanse and the endless horizons. I feel something similar in coastal settings, too. Germany, by contrast, is so small—80 million of us packed into a tight space—and it’s a country that, historically, has seen more wars fought on its soil than any other. Every European war was, in some way, also fought here, either on Germanic land or with Germanic soldiers—even the American War of Independence involved them. That history has left deep traces in our collective soul.
Hey Jen -- I wish I could have been a fly on a cactus during your desert trip and listened to some of your conversations and witnessed some of the hikes. Sounds like it was both inspirational and healing. When might you share some excepts from your latest effort?
What amazing things you got to see! It sounds like it was a really great time. I would love to have such an escape from life and work right now. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for reading! and for commenting. We did indeed see and do some amazingly wonderful stuff. Like I said, I feel almost embarrassed at what a privilige it was (without wanting to be sound mealy mouthed)...
I’m so glad you pointed me to your essay, Jennifer. Reading it, I felt like I was there with you. And I also felt the sharp contrast—how I wasn’t. That old longing stirred again—the longing to be anywhere but here. To be in a space where something like that breathtaking, expansive art is even possible.
Because honestly, in Germany, I don’t feel that space. Not physically. Not mentally. There’s little openness to allow something so monumental to be installed in a landscape that looks empty only at first glance—and yet holds everything. Maybe we just don’t have those wide, open places. The ones where you can be alone and see for miles, without a fence, a house, a tree, a forest, or a hill in your line of sight.
Where I live, everything feels miniature. Confined. Compressed. And with that comes rigidity, order, regulation—walls, both literal and invisible. There’s no space to expand beyond the horizon. Not in the landscape, and even less so in the minds of most people around me.
And yet—I’m someone constantly spilling over borders and edges. I don’t fit in forms or spaces built to contain. So when I imagine standing there where you stood, something in me exhales. My heart grows wide. My soul sighs out. My mind softens into that openness.
That’s when it becomes a soul service station for me too. Not just art, but a place that nourishes every part of me—soul, mind, heart, and body.
As I said, my heart doesn’t beat German. It beats North American. And I’m not trying to romanticize—I’m just telling the truth of where it comes alive.
You seem to have drunk in the art - and the landscape - as much as if you had been there. I am so glad that the essay opened this up for you and so sorry that you feel confined in your everyday. The sky is definitely bigger there, something to do with being at sea level and the mountains that surround the desert rising so abruptly and massively. It feels epic, a widescreen movie of a landscape, in technicolour. There is room to breathe and dream for sure. And the artworks are like prompts along the way. I'm not sure I could live there though, not now. Not enough clear space or clarity away from those spaces. Mountainous supermarkets, acres of food outlets, mile high burgers - stretch between. There is a price to pay.
Jennifer, I know, I have driven through those landscapes in 1997 on my epic 2.5 month Roadtrip by Greyhound from San Francisco, down to San Diego, and all the way over to Key West and all the way back to San Francisco. And I stopped a Palm Springs. I saw and felt that landscape. Why do you think I write so much about the Canyonlands and the wide open spaces. Because I still know how I felt. There have been other landscapes, the Northern Cape of South Africa especially, that had the same feel. And Yes, it is epic and I am so grateful you pointed me to your essay. And that Art? Wow! Chef’s Kiss, indeed.
Wow - that was a massive trip. I experienced that 'big sky' feel when I lived in the Gers in France about an hour from the Pyrenees - very flat until you reached the base of the mountains that then shot up. Must have something to do with that juxtaposition.
Jennifer, in the Kalahari Desert there are no mountains—just vast open space. For me, it’s less about elevation and more about the seemingly uninhabited expanse and the endless horizons. I feel something similar in coastal settings, too. Germany, by contrast, is so small—80 million of us packed into a tight space—and it’s a country that, historically, has seen more wars fought on its soil than any other. Every European war was, in some way, also fought here, either on Germanic land or with Germanic soldiers—even the American War of Independence involved them. That history has left deep traces in our collective soul.
Hey Jen -- I wish I could have been a fly on a cactus during your desert trip and listened to some of your conversations and witnessed some of the hikes. Sounds like it was both inspirational and healing. When might you share some excepts from your latest effort?
It was indeed both those things - wish you had been present too and not just as a fly! Not sure about excerpts….thinking on it xxxx