Visual Digest (2): swimming into a light box

What can light, water, and box create when they combine together?  A light box that sits on a pool of water!  It sounds simple and may not seem impressive, but when we look at James Turrell's skyspaces we would understand better what "less is more" means.

James Turrell. Stone Sky. 2007. Located at Stonescape, Napa Valley.

Turrell (born in Los Angelos, 1943) has been creating skyspaces, installations that contain viewers yet at the same time expose them to the sky and light.  The famous collector couple Norman and Norah Stone purchased a seventeen-acre property in Napa Valley (including a vineyard!), named it the Stonescape, and transformed it into an artistic space.

side view.  image from into the studio. 

Stone Sky, commissioned in 2001 and completed six years later, includes a pavilion skyspace and an infinity pool that stretches beyond another white skyspace.  The pavilion has a square opening in the ceiling.  To access the white box, one dives into the infinity pool from the pavilion steps and swims underwater until you cross the edges of the box.

looking out from the pavilion

Inside the box, the light changes according to the season, time, and weather.  So to experience Turrell's skyspace fully, one just has to linger and relax in this soothing space.

inside the skyspace

The Stonescape has many other great installations and structures, if you are interested in learning more, please click here.  I would love to visit it someday, except I don't think it's open to the public...Maybe I can try to stalk the Stones somehow? tsk tsk.

p.s. all images are from the Stonescape website unless otherwise indicated.