Tinajas, Permeability, and the Myth of the Cowboy

By Ben Schoenburg.

Muley Point, UT. 

9/13/19

“it was a hard land, and it bred hard men to hard ways’

• Heller with a Gun, Louis L’Amour, 1955.

“Not speaking demonstrates control not only over feelings but over one’s physical boundaries as well. The male, by remaining “hermetic,” “closed-up,” maintains the integrity of the boundary that divides him from the world. (It is fitting that in the Western the ultimate loss of that control takes place when one man puts holes in another man’s body.) To speak is literally to open the body to penetration by opening an orifice; it is also to mingle the body’s substance with the substance of what is outside it. Finally, it suggests a certain incompleteness, a need to be in relation. Speech relates the person who is speaking to other people (as opposed to things); it requires acknowledging their existence and, by extension, their parity.” 

-West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns by Jane Tompkins 

   

In the myth of the Cowboy, as codified in Westerns, silence and being closed-off emotionally are highly regarded characteristics that are represented as a the reflection of the landscape itself. This landscape is shown as dry, hard, and impenetrable in its solidness. 

Heading out on Muley point I was thinking about permeability in the landscape and looking at the porous sandstone tinajas (bowl-like indentations in the rock) and spongy vegetated areas. When I chanced upon a spring under a cliff, the abundant sound of dripping water confirmed that this place was not as hard and dry as I had been led to believe. The rock on top of the mesa was a catchment for the rainwater which collected and then percolated down into the sandstone. A less permeable layer bellow created a sort of reservoir that slowly released water on the side of the cliff. 

I had the idea to place one of the blue 7-gallon water jugs that are ubiquitous on Land Art trips under the drip and see how long it would take to fill up. My intention was to bring the jug back to the surface and re-animate a tinaja with water. The first time I had filled it, the tinaja foamed and swirled in an energetic pattern. When I returned the next day however, all the water had evaporated out leaving a layer of mud at the bottom with the footprints of a bird and some sort of rodent. Over the next couple of days I followed a similar routine, collecting the water from the spring and filling the tinaja. My expectation that it would come back to life was checked by the porous sandstone that soaked up the water and the hot wind that evaporated it. The birds liked it though, and the feathers and footprints were evidence that they had been using it as a bath. 

The Western myth is that this land is rugged, silent, and impermeable. Interacting with and observing the spring and tinaja has shown the land to be permeable, teeming with relations, in constant change, and possessing an agency and voice of its own.