You may have seen a weathered Argosy Trailer in front of the contemporary gallery and wondered what it was doing there. This isn’t just any trailer. It’s a piece of art history because Artist James Turrell lived in this trailer while working on his initial plans for Roden Crater.

James Turrell (1943 – ) is an American icon, a founder of the Light and Space movement. Turrell’s work enables our direct experience of light–not as a medium through which we see, but as a thing in itself.

James is interested in how awareness of light enables us to ponder our place in creation. Through this deeply philosophical work, James has become one of the most famous artists of our time. Roden Crater is James Turrell’s masterwork, a “gateway to observe light, time, and space.” James has been sculpting this volcanic caldera, fifty-five miles from Winslow, since 1977.

For the first several years that James worked on Roden Crater, he lived in and worked in this Argosy Trailer. It was in this space that James Turrell worked out the initial plans for what has become one of the most important artworks in the world. Allan acquired this trailer by swapping his old friend James for a piece of railroad equipment James wanted for his ranch.

You can’t visit Roden Crater, but you can visit the Argosy Trailer! You can also see a James Turrell holograph inside La Posada’s lobby.