work is the end result: an environmental forest, a mathematical forest, a wheat field. But underneath, there’s what motivated it. As I visualize mathematics and logic -- invisible processes -- I also visualize spirituality. I’m very happy that people pick up on that. I make people feel better about themselves, and that means an awful lot to me. I make them feel good, getting above the humdrum of their lives, their dissatisfaction with their lives, looking for deeper elements and understandings. That is what is related to spirituality. It’s not a church or a temple with a high ceiling. It’s inside yourself, what you find” (Goldbard). In this quote Denes is essentially saying that nature, the environment, is really the best way to have a spiritual connection to something. Also, it makes more sense to worship nature, the thing that provides us with everything we need, rather than these man-made structures. We need to understand that and start to think about it more often, before we destroy everything that provides for us with our wastefulness.
Visually, when I first looked at this monument I started to noticed the hidden meanings of sexuality and gender, even though she never mentioned that it was part of her message. I noticed this, because after reading so much wilderness literature and analyzing it, I realized that our view of nature is this romanticized, sexual, gendered, American view. We are portraying all this onto nature for our own entertainment and pleasure, whether we realize it or not. Nature has always been described as a female, in most wilderness literature works. All of the authors refer to it as “she” and describe it with words like “beautiful” and “virgin lands.” But the authors, who were mostly men, also describe it as something untameable that needs to be conquered and preserved, like nature cannot handle itself! This is mostly an American concept, because it is a white concept. Of course the lands were never “virgin,” we forced the Native Americans out of their homes in order to take over land that we then turned into conservations. To me, this monument depicts nature in its original state (or at least before it became a romanticized construction) and the tall, erect buildings represent white men pioneering, conquering, and industrializing the lands. When you look at the monument this way, the city does not seem so beautiful. It seems like a scary thing that is happening to our planet, and makes me afraid for the future. Even if Denes did not intend for the monument to say this much, it says this and much more to the viewer, and inspires us all to focus more on what is important and beneficial for our planet in the long run.
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