This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2004, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
NORTH SHORE OF THE GREAT SALT LAKE - Like the skeleton of some mysterious ancient ruin, the Spiral Jetty lies exposed and salt-encrusted on this parched lake bed, some distance from the retreating waterline that covered it for three decades.
Six years of drought have transformed, at least for now, the appearance of the monumental earth-and-rock sculpture, created by artist Robert Smithson in 1970. Not only can visitors venture out onto the jetty without getting wet - they can stroll the surrounding flats to survey its coiled spine from new angles.
A two-hour drive from Salt Lake City, the last quarter of it over a teeth-rattling dirt road, the Spiral Jetty makes for a unique day trip. Its remoteness is a major part of its allure: You don't have to be an art lover to appreciate the strangeness of the jetty's existence on this isolated lakeshore, far from the world's modern-art centers.
The New York Times calls the Spiral Jetty "the most famous work of American art that almost nobody has ever seen in the flesh." Ric Collier, director of the Salt Lake Art Center, calls it one of 10 seminal artworks of the last half of the 20th century. Many Utahns, however, don't know it's here.
Just ask Sarah Ohman and Mark Stevenson, artists from Port Townsend, Wash., who journeyed to Utah last week to get married at the jetty. The couple stopped first to get their marriage license at the Salt Lake County Clerk's office, where a staffer asked them where they were getting married.
"We said, 'The Spiral Jetty,' " Stevenson said. And she said, 'The what?' "
Thirty-four years after it was built, the Spiral Jetty is undergoing a mini-renaissance. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles is currently hosting the first complete retrospective of Smithson's work. And the Salt Lake Art Center last Friday and Saturday hosted a Spiral Jetty Weekend, which drew scores of artists, scholars and art administrators to Utah for guided field trips to the jetty itself.
The jetty is 15 feet wide, extends 1,500 feet from shore and is large enough to be visible from space. When first built, the sculpture protruded above the surface of the shallow Great Salt Lake. Within two years, however, the briny waters rose and swallowed it completely. The jetty remained mostly submerged until 2002, when it reappeared.
But it's never before looked as it does now - landlocked on a bed of white salt - which makes this a fascinating time to visit.
A brief history: By the 1960s and early 1970s, progressive artists were looking to create large-scale works outdoors in nature, using such elements as earth, stones and sticks. One of the leading practitioners of this new, nature-as-blank-canvas movement, called "Earth Art," was a young artist from New Jersey named Robert Smithson.
Smithson was 32 when he received a grant that would allow him to build the Spiral Jetty. The artist was not sure at first what shape his work would take, but he was drawn to the north shore of the Great Salt Lake because of the algae and bacteria there that give its waters a distinctive reddish color.
Smithson found his site, secured a 20-year lease from the state government, rented a motel room in Brigham City and began looking for a contractor. To Utah construction workers in April 1970, the long-haired Eastern artist with his black leather pants and wacky plan to dump piles of stones into the Great Salt Lake must have seemed like someone from another planet.
"My first idea was, 'This is dumber than a box of rocks,' " said Bob Phillips, the Ogden contractor who reluctantly became Smithson's foreman on the project. But Smithson had a check for $6,000, and a job is a job. With the help of several other workers, two dump trucks and a front loader, Phillips and Smithson went to work, using boulders they scooped from the lake's shoreline.
Under Smithson's supervision, the jetty was completed in a few weeks.
"He didn't do any of the work. But he directed where every rock went," said Phillips. "He was very determined, and he knew what he wanted."
Observers and art critics have since debated the meanings of the jetty's swirling design. Many believe Smithson was inspired by petroglyph spirals left by Indians on rocks throughout the Southwest. Others cite a Mormon legend about a whirlpool in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. Most critics note the spiral's counter-clockwise curl as evidence that Smithson was playing against time, in a linear sense, to suggest infinity.
Such debates only add to the jetty's iconic mystery - a mystery that Smithson himself is not available to solve. Three years after he finished the Spiral Jetty, the artist was killed in a small-plane crash while surveying an earthwork site in Texas.
As articles about Smithson's curious creation appeared around the world, the legend of the Spiral Jetty grew. Phillips, the foreman, first realized the importance of the bizarre project several years later when he read a large spread about it in Esquire magazine.
"I'm glad to be associated with it," said the plain-spoken Phillips, who has developed a deep fondness for the artwork he helped build - despite his frequent clashes with Smithson over its construction. "He built it in spite of me."
A contemplative experience: Visiting the Spiral Jetty with people who are seeing it for the first time is exhilarating. You feel the anticipation build as you reach the lake, step out of your car and head north along the shore. Beyond an old pier left by oil drillers, you round a corner and the low-slung jetty appears ahead on your left.
To gain some perspective on its scale and shape, climb the ridge on your right. The hill offers a panoramic view of the lake, plus a near-aerial vantage on the jetty below.
"I studied this in college," said artist Francis Scorzelli of Santa Barbara, Calif., gazing down on the jetty last Friday from the hilltop. Scorzelli was one of more than 100 people who visited the sculpture last weekend through the Salt Lake Art Center.
"I remember thinking, 'I really want to see that.' And 30 years later, here I am," he continued. "It still had a dramatic effect when I first saw it. I bet if [Smithson] was here, he'd be pleased. He wanted nature to take over, and to see what happened [to his earth works] over time."
Smithson knew that drought cycles caused the lake's water level to rise and fall. But he might not have predicted his sculpture would someday sit beached and bone-dry, more than 100 yards from the water's edge.
The jetty's black basalt rocks are encased in salt crystals and lie against the ivory backdrop of the salt flats. The jetty appears almost white on white; even in the heat of the September sun, it suggests a winter landscape.
Visitors today don't need to scramble over lumpy rocks to traverse the entire jetty - they can simply cut across the smooth flats to the spiral's core. But should they?
"Sure, now you can short-cut," said Dennis O'Leary, executive director of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Woodside, Calif., as he navigated the jetty's bumpy coil. "But you're not supposed to short-cut. You're supposed to follow the spiral. It's a contemplative experience."
It's also an experience that is best appreciated alone or in a small group. Much of the jetty's power lies in the solitude and stillness of its singular setting.
In 1999, Smithson's estate donated the Spiral Jetty to the Dia Art Foundation, a New York City nonprofit that supports and preserves art projects around the nation. While the trickle of curiosity seekers who now visit the jetty is unlikely to become a flood, its caretakers are mindful of how best to preserve the artwork for future generations.
Dia's curator, Lynne Cooke, believes that although Smithson was intrigued with natural cycles, he did not want his sculpture to erode and disappear. The lake bed sediment surrounding the jetty is gradually rising, which could someday threaten to envelop it. Even so, Dia is reluctant to tinker with its prized possession until it can research the lake's larger climate patterns.
"We're not going to touch it [anytime soon]," said Cooke, who believes the jetty's appeal lies in its ever-changing appearance. "It was built very well. It's obviously not shifting. And salt is a great preservative."