In ancient times, the geography of a place was so intrinsic to a person’s identity and character that one’s name was meaningless without reference to place—Francis of Assisi, Elaine of Aquitaine, Augustine of Hippo—are but a few noteworthy examples. One would not be amiss to follow suit with the author of Enter Space—Bill of Ouragon (French root of Oregon).

 

The 27 stories and the 108 photographs that have been collected in five thematic booklets lay witness to a longitudinal experiment carried out over a lifetime by artist Bill Witherspoon. Back in 1961, as a nineteen-year-old, Bill travelled to Southeastern Oregon’s High Desert—the western edge of the 200,000 square mile Great Basin. 

 

There, in North America’s largest area of endorheic watersheds—those that retain water and allow no outflow to other external bodies but instead collect into seasonal or permanent bodies of water—he would discover a symbiotic relationship with the vast geological expanse. 

​​

“I am the space where I am.” 

—Noel Arnaud, French poet

 

Just as the desert’s patterns tell of the forces that shape this unique topography, the stories and photographs in Enter Space stand as a record of Bill’s transformation from young man, threadbare artist, and spiritual seeker to seasoned surveyor, conscientious ecologist, and most remarkably, mirror of the desert. 

 

Enter Space is a collection of events where the photography foreshadows the storyteller. Bill has experienced remarkable things out there—sharing a porch with rattlesnakes, walking among the West’s last wild horses, and even forging a long friendship with a rancher named Dan Barry—who shared a tacit acquiescence that certain events, out in the desert, defy explanation. 

 

Like peeling a good onion, Bill’s stories have layers that you sense, rather than see. Yet, those layers run deep. They are memorable because they brim with the genuine surprise of one who writes to make sure that something did—indeed, occur. Something timeless runs through them. It’s almost like Bill sought to write them before he himself disappears into the sagebrush wind that sweeps the wide-open desert playa.

 

The 27 stories explore the landscape with the zeal of a seasoned naturalist while others dip into the poetics of solitude and the spiritual alchemy present when one approaches the land with reverence and gratitude. Other tales narrate the artist’s attempt to paint the evanescence of late afternoon while a select few—brief and intense like poems—detail the indelible memory of experiences, including devotional ones that defy categorization.  

 

Spanning five decades from 1962 to 2019, each story reveals a little more about the deep beauty that nature hides in plain sight. If one could see deeply enough, could build a life out of such serendipitous encounters, one might uncover a measure of grace, be touched and sensitized by the depth, even the source of life. 

 

Enter Space is that uncommon gem—witness to a life few of us can sketch out, yet one that offers unspoken mysteries to the explorer of consciousness.