More compelling, for me, than Heizer’s work was his work ethic and method of creation. I feel like he was extremely driven--not only to create the pieces that he conceptualized, but to have the pieces take form and be created in a way that aligned with his final vision. I got the impression that he placed strong emphasis on the process of formation, making it almost as important--if not equally as important--as the final piece itself. In “A Monument to Outlast Humanity,” Heizer mentions that he feels his work would lack “salt” or “flavor” if it did not involve risk; this speaks directly to the process of creation and to the final work itself; with this, I consider North, East, South, West, and how some visitors felt it too risky to get close to the edge of the negative spaces as mentioned in the Levitated Mass documentary. This idea also speaks to the risk that it took to create “Levitated Mass” as a piece, denoted by LA’s countless denials of propositions for transporting the rock. Two more ideas that interest me from the reading are the tortured artist and the elevation of Heizer’s own work in his eyes with the addition of the saxophone. I feel that both of these ideas speak, again, to the creative process. Firstly, I wonder if the artist is more respected when they are “tortured,” given that Heizer was widely disregarded considering the breadth of his work in his earlier days. In his later days, when he developed his medical condition, lost weight, and was left by his wife, his work gained much higher recognition. I do not fully appreciate this part of the process of recognition. Next, I wonder why the painting he was doing looked so much better to him with the saxophone and if the work needs to be elevated for the untrained eye to see its magic as well. I feel that these ideas relate to my artistic practice because I like the process to reflect the final work and appreciate how he reflects the riskiness of his pieces in their creation process in light of his “tortured” state and additive method of creation with the saxophone.

In Levitated Mass, the concepts I found most interesting were a) how an art object can relate to the other pieces around it in multiple different ways as shown by the 45/90/180° pieces, b) the question of trust and safety amongst science and art, and c) the excitement and feelings of the townspeople. In my work, I have realized that so much can be changed just by rearranging the order of presentation (like how I chose decay → coincidence → love rather than the order we were given), and I think that Heizer demonstrates that perfectly for the public by letting them see 3 different rotations at once and allowing them to consider the implications of that. Considering trust and safety, I’m wondering how we can trust science more in the fact of art: there were so many models of how to get the rock in “Levitated Mass” to its final destination, it seemed, and it was struck down so many times by the county regardless of that fact. Is there a reason for this–possibly being the fact that it’s art and not completely for science or government purposes, for example–that it keeps being denied? I feel that, with my work, I want to prove that art is just as much of a guiding force as are other means of communication that are possibly more widely-respected. Lastly, it baffled me how excited the townspeople watching the rock being transported were; I felt like it was almost a bit silly watching them all be so excited about this rock going down the highway. It would be cool for me to learn to emulate this excitement in my personal practice, because if people can get excited about a moving rock, they can get excited about other trivial work that I may make.