In what he calls his “final and most ambitious project,” Northern New Mexico artist Ra Paulette is carving out a sandstone cave which is illuminated by the sun. Sandstone, clay, ceramics? You may ask if you missed the connective tissue? There is none except that it fits our “not clay but…” file. Clay is earth and this project has a plasticity that makes it of interest to those who work in unfired clay. Enjoy. Also it’s 45 minutes from CFile’s physical address in Santa Fe.
The cave looks like something out of science fiction, high fantasy or a temple for a religion that hasn’t been invented yet. The religion comparison is key, because the artist describes his work as a solitary, monastic process. “Manual labor is the foundation of my self-expression,” he states.
“A mile walk in the wilderness becomes a pilgrimage journey to a hand dug, elaborately sculpted cave complex illuminated by the sun through multiple tunneled windows. The cave is both a shared ecumenical shrine and an otherworldly venue for presentations and performances designed to address issues of social welfare and the art of well being.“
Anyone who lives in New Mexico can tell you that the land has an otherworldly timelessness to it, even without Paulette’s super-human intervention. Both beautiful and yet indifferent to the people who live here, the land compels you to evaluate humanity’s relationship to it within the context of a yawning gulf of time. When it’s commonplace for someone here to remodel their home and stumble across a burial site with ancient skeletons in their basement, one starts to consider not only their relationship to the desert but also their link to the generations upon generations of people who lived here previously. Knowing that, you can’t really accuse Paulette of shoehorning social issues into his cave project. The caves are timeless, which is precisely why they contain multitudes.
“In the midst of some of the most beautiful landscapes in the West are rural communities of warm-hearted, family-oriented people from unique cultural traditions at times plagued by crime, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, poor school performance, teen pregnancy and suicide rates near or at the top of the national surveys. (The death rate by drug overdose in Rio Arriba County is the highest of any county in the nation.)
“All of this in rural communities filled with artists and craft-persons nearby to one of the nation’s major art centers in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“The tri-cultural framework of Hispanic native New Mexicans, Native Americans and Anglo Americans has been added to in recent years by a significant immigrant population mostly from Mexico. By and large these groups live in separate worlds, in relationship marred by undercurrents of misunderstanding from language and cultural differences, economic pressures and historical antagonisms. Add to this mix wealthy ‘newcomers’ from out of state who buy up multi-acre lots of choicest land on which to build million dollar houses that cause property values to skyrocket, thus forcing the local population onto ever smaller plots of subdivided family properties with trailers on them.
“This is the context for the social art of the Luminous Caves.”
Unfortunately the caves are closed while Paulette continues to work. His web site has a photo gallery, along with a virtual tour one can take of the cave’s intricately-carved walls. A film about Paulette, Cave Digger, was nominated for an academy award this year.
Bill Rodgers is a Contributing Editor at CFile.
Any thoughts about this post? Share yours in the comment box below.
Ra Paulette, Luminous Caves. Images by Ra Paulette and Karoff Films.
An unbelievable work of art that certainly belongs in C File. who else would push the boundaries of clay but Garth. Both are earth and a plastic material. Could this perhaps end up being one of the Wonders of the World?