My earliest memory of traveling through time was when I was 7 or 8 years old. My mom, Lana, and I visited a family friend’s ranch deep in Southeastern Colorado where we crawled inside a cave that had petroglyphs on the walls. I was mesmerized. Our friend whispered to us to not touch anything because we were on sacred ground. We were all very quiet, and the silence that filled the space gave me an awareness my young self had never felt before.

I’ve realized that this experience greatly shaped my feelings toward art. When I’m in a space surrounded by art that stirs my soul, the experience is very intimate, profound, and memorable; and I enter an awareness where time travel is possible. The art takes me away from my presence and reality defined by time, much like that first encounter with petroglyphs did so many years ago. I often experience this awareness when I create installations in the land.

My experiences with art works that have taken me to this state are etched in my mind: Sun Tunnels, Spiral Jetty, HEARD·DAM, Legend Rock, the Rothko Room, and the octagonal Agnes Martin gallery at SFMOMA, pictured here in a panorama. (As is most often true with photos of art, this image doesn’t come close to doing the work and the space justice.)

Maybe I was there for hours, maybe minutes. Does it matter?