Nancy Holt’s Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings

Ben Breshears and Bryn Lilly

About the Artist:

Nancy Holt is originally from Massachusetts. In school, she majored in biology rather than art, perhaps an early nod to her future nature related projects. Although Nancy Holt started out with photo and video art, her most famous pieces are sculptures. Holt is most known for her sculpture “Sun Tunnels” in the Great Basin Desert in Utah. Usually made of industrial materials and concrete, she focuses on how her sculptures interact with the sun and shadows. She prefers to have her installations in wide open areas, but that is not always the case. Many of her sculptures are interactive; the viewers are permitted to walk through and around the piece to experience different angles. This provides many different viewpoints and potentially new experiences every visit.

About the sculpture:

Nancy Holt’s original intention for this land installation was for it to align with the north star. Usually, her pieces align with the sun and shadows, but since Bellingham is a seaport, she used the north star to reflect the history of sea navigation. In the center of the sculpture, at night, the viewer can see the north star by looking through all the circular windows. Inside the sculpture the viewer is guided to look through the holes to see new perspectives into the outside world. Although the north star cannot always be seen, the towering walls strongly portray the theme of new perspectives.

Nancy Holt created her piece rock rings during 1977-1978. This time period definitely had some part to play with the creation of this sculpture. The world was evolving rapidly with the continued persistence of the counterculture movement in America. Since the 70’s was an influential time for astronomy and spirituality, it makes sense that she created a celestial and divine inspired sculpture during this time. This also has a strong sense of a connection to nature, similar to a piece by Robert Smithson, The spiral jetty, which was created 7 years earlier in 1970. The spiral Jetty has a connection to the pattern in the water, while the rock rinks have a connection to the star patterns in the sky. Spiritual and natural themes are present with the sculpture Rock Rings, the era of definitely had influence on creating a sculpture with these themes.   

Our reinterpretation of Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings

Our group redesigned and re imagined Nancy Holt’s Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings. We chose acrylic paint on canvas to contrast with the 3D nature of Holt’s original sculpture. In our abstract painting we separate the individual rings and positioned them in previously unseen ways. We attempted to transfer her three dimensional sculpture on to a two dimensional canvas while maintaining themes of different perspectives, passageways, and celestial.