Built to burn

Burning Man temple crew builds vision of new artist in residence at local warehouse

August 10, 2005

By DANE GOLDEN
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF

Each Labor Day weekend, attendees of the annual Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert look forward to visiting "the temple."

Normally built under the direction of Petaluma artist David Best, the temple is different each year. It has become a place of contemplation, forgiveness and catharsis. People bring photos of family members who have passed away. They write notes in the temple about ex-lovers they hadn't been able to let go of, or a parent who abused them. They even bring ashes of family members or pets.

And, like other spiritual places, a few even get married there.

And on the Sunday night before Labor Day, the entire production is set ablaze in a mostly somber ceremony.

Burning Man is an annual art festival and temporary community based on radical self-expression and self-reliance in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, attended by tens of thousands of people each year. In what is undoubtedly the world's foremost congregation of extraordinary, temporary installation art and sculpture, "the temple" is perhaps the most notable among the highly notable.

This year, after five years and five temple/sculpture masterpieces, Best has ceded the artistic vision to another artist, Mark Grieve, a resident of San Rafael and a veteran artist of eight previous Burning Man festivals.

"We'll have big ones, little ones, short ones, fat ones," Grieve said of the temples.

"We're making a cup for a community come to pour its humanity into," he said, "where people can pour in things they want to celebrate and things they want to get rid of."

The name this year is the Temples of Dreams. It's currently being constructed in a warehouse in west Petaluma.

Bill Cotting is a member of the "temple crew," the all-volunteer group of enthusiasts who are the labor and organizational backbone of the yearly edifices. There are around a couple of dozen core team members who have been coming to weekly work parties in Petaluma as early as April, and as many as 70 will help connect the pre-assembled pieces when they get to "the playa" (what Burning Man attendees affectionately call the Black Rock Desert where the festival takes place).

Cotting helps coordinate logistics.

"The objective is to get as many things as possible pre-built," Cotting said. Then, on Aug. 15, the pieces will be loaded up on trucks and driven to Black Rock City, Nev.

Grieve calls the Temples of Dreams a service piece, serving the Burning Man community. "I hope it will be a place where people can celebrate their humanity," he said, both grief and celebration. The design will incorporate elements of both Japanese temples and Art Deco.

Grieve said that it is unlike any sculpture he's ever done.

"It's built for a whole community," he said. He estimates that as many as 40,000 people will view it during its single week of existence.

As in previous years, the temples are being built using 70 percent recycled industrial wood waste. They are being stained with children's tempra, a natural dye.

The temple area will include loose sticks for people to help build the temple village even as the week goes along, placing sticks where they see fit. And as usual, they can write on the temples and the sticks.

Throughout it all, the "temple crew" keeps the momentum going.

"The crew is a whole huge part of this piece," said Grieve. It takes on the roles of fund-raising, cooking, camping needs, design, production, cutting templates, building the small pagodas, and painting boards. The crew includes men and women from their late teens to their early 60s who are artists, engineers, construction workers or rocket scientists.

"It's a fantastically diverse group," said Cotting. "It's a source of pride to be on this crew and give this to the citizens of Burning Man."

"On work days it's packed," Grieve said. "I've never had this many people working on a structure."

But the most difficult job, he said, is the "camp mother" at Burning Man, a role which is filled by Rosanna Ferrera.

"She feeds 70 people in the desert," Grieve said. "And nobody works if they don't eat, including me."

Last year's temple was quite ambitious, and included a 110-foot-tall building which was a quarter-mile long and arrived at Black Rock City in eight semi-truck beds.

This year, artist Grieve says it won't be as large.

"I didn't want to out-big anybody," he said. But there is still a lot of stuff, perhaps two semi's full of pre-assembled temples.

"What I'm really after is using these temples to activate the space between," said Grieve. There will be places to sit and socialize between the temples.

The warehouse space and some other expenses are being paid for with a grant from Burning Man.

Cotting said with the ambitious temple projects, it's never easy to say when it's complete, because there's always more you can do.

"But at the end, you have to say 'Put down the tools, put away the nail gun, and call it finished.'"

(Contact Dane Golden at dgolden@arguscourier.com)

BURNING MAN TEMPLES

2000: Temple of the Mind

2001: Temple of Tears

2002: Temple of Joy

2003: Temple of Honor

2004: Temple of Stars

2005: Temples of Dreams