Nancy Holt, Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings (1977-78)
Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington
Brown Mountain stone schist from British Columbia

An aerial view of two concentric circular stone walls with the forest surrounding on the left and grass on the right.

Nancy Holt, Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings (1977-78)
Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington
Brown Mountain stone schist from British Columbia

Looking through a circular opening at another curved stone wall with another circular opening in it.

Nancy Holt, Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings (1977-78)
Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington
Brown Mountain stone schist from British Columbia

Two curved stone walls with circular openings.

Nancy Holt, Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings (1977-78)
Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington
Brown Mountain stone schist from British Columbia

Concentric circular openings in stone walls in the center of the images. Brown stone and dark shadow and grass filling the centermost circle.

Nancy Holt, Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings (1977-78)
Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington
Brown Mountain stone schist from British Columbia

Nancy Holt, Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings (1977-78)
Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington
Brown Mountain stone schist from British Columbia

1977—1980

Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings

Nancy Holt

1977-78

Western Washington University

Brown Mountain stone schist from British Columbia

Height: 10 ft. (3 m); Outer Ring Diameter: 40 ft. (12.2 m); Inner Ring Diameter: 20 ft. (6.1 m)

Two circular, concentric stone walls, augmented by arched entryways and round openings, are secluded on the grounds of Western Washington University. Depending on one’s position and proximity, the walls’ openings create myriad shapes and perceptions of space. Views change with the fluctuations of light and weather, the fog and rain typical of the Pacific Northwest altering the stones’ substance and obstructing visibility. It took 1,400 hours to erect Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings—in her writings on the work, Holt muses on its existence as a concrete testament to the ephemeral concepts of time and labor.

Click here for details on visiting Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings.

Writing

Scholarly Text

Stone walls receding in space with concentric circular holes in the center

Doubling Down: Nancy Holt’s Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings

Barbara Miller

Circles everywhere! Upon entering Nancy Holt’s 2018 solo exhibition at Dia Art Foundation in Chelsea, New York City the observer is engulfed by a network of flat circular line drawings, round cast shadows, and orbicular light pools. Circles also appear dimensionally: as dark voids cut into walls and as mirrored surfaces shaped into orbs. Very tangibly Holt’s circles telescope out, forming lens-less viewfinders. As one stoops to look through cast-iron spyholes, for example in Dual Locators (1972), a tunneling effect occurs: circles become layered onto circles.

The idea of Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings seemed to emerge out of my growing awareness of the lush Northwestern terrain—the ancient mountain rocks, the hazy green hills, the huge fir trees, the heavy, wet weather, the rugged seacoast.

Nancy Holt

From Nancy Holt's “Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings: 1977-78,” reprinted in Nancy Holt: Sightlines, 92.

Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings

Writing

Doubling Down: Nancy Holt’s Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings

See Also