vespers
from off grid, on grid · 2026 · archival pigment prints on cotton paper
In 2020 I made sculptures at The Land With No Name Sanctuary in the Sierrita Mountains of Arizona, off grid, with no electricity or running water. Several carried lights meant to be lit by the wind, set out toward evening. They seldom lit.
These prints return those works to a grid. Each follows a rule fixed before the image is made, after Charles Gaines: one cell for one second, or for one unit of Morse code. The rule, not my eye, decides how much of each photograph appears, and most cells stay empty.
The photographs were all taken in the hour of vespers, the evening office that once began with the lighting of the lamp. I am not a monk, though I share some of the tendencies and admire the vocation; I borrow only the name of the hour. The offices set the passing day against a time without end. These prints can only count the day, second by second, by the clock. They are made from inside earthly time, facing the other kind.
I think of them less as records than as something nearer to icons, as I understand them: made by rule, with the maker set aside, so that whatever acts in them acts toward the one who stands before them. The rules are listed below.
Across the valley, the Kitt Peak telescopes were closed that summer.
to wait, 2026
actions to relate to what does not answer · after Richard Serra, Verb List Compilation: Actions to Relate to Oneself, 1967–68
1 to set the work in the land
2 to fix the camera
3 to frame the work
4 to fix the interval
5 to sit
6 to wait
7 to wait one hour
8 to note the minute
9 to note what answers
10 to note the gust
11 to note the bird
12 to note the shadow
13 to note the silence
14 to film one minute in ten
15 to leave nine
16 to photograph only when it moves
17 to record the sound
18 to walk around it
19 to walk the same circuit
20 to keep the track
21 to keep the time
22 to check the clock
23 to keep the original
24 to write one line
25 to name what was waited for
26 to count the seconds
27 to count the hours
28 to lay the grid
29 to number the cells
30 to let the rule decide
31 to let the wind decide
32 to print on the day
33 to print what the wind allows
34 to leave the gaps
35 to keep the gaps
36 to not fill them
37 to return
38 to wait again
39 of wind
40 of waiting
41 of chance
42 of attention
43 of absence
44 of return