For my fellow Owls who’ll be at Homecoming this weekend, and for anyone else visiting the art mecca of Houston, if you don’t already know about James Turrell’s Twilight Epiphany Skyspace at Rice University, you should. When you’re on campus, you can’t miss the pyramidal structure capped by a “floating” white roof with a central square opening that frames the sky.

Rising like a grassy Aztec pyramid from the lawn in front of the monumental Shepherd School of Music building, the structure has a special connection with the music school, having been acoustically engineered to host student performances. But its deeper purpose is revealed at dusk or just before sunrise.

At those times of day, as the light in the sky brightens or fades, a choreographed LED light sequence plays for 40 minutes, projecting color onto the white plane of the roof that frames the sky. It’s a luminous, peaceful display that incorporates the sky into the art and invites you inside the art itself.

Twilight Epiphany is the 73rd Skyspace created by internationally known artist James Turrell, and one of his largest. It’s also the first to be acoustically engineered. Suzanne Deal Booth, a Rice University alumna and trustee, was instrumental in bringing Skyspace to campus. She hoped that it would serve as “a source of contemplation, interaction and wonder. It will ideally become a part of [students’] daily life — an everyday experience — as I fully believe art, rather than being contained, constrained and rarified, should be about discovering the special and sublime in our everyday lives.”

Until my visit last weekend (along with my daughter, sister, and sister-in-law), I hadn’t been inside, though I was curious about it. We’d planned to visit at twilight, but I realized too late that reservations are required for the twilight show, and all spots were taken. So we sucked it up and got up before dawn the next day (no reservations are required for the early show), arriving on campus just before the sun rose — unfortunately missing most of the performance, which starts 40 minutes before sunrise. Although we were foiled in experiencing the entire show, we did enjoy about 10 minutes of the light display, with only a few other hardy souls there watching it with us.

Although it doesn’t look very large, up to 120 people can be accommodated inside on two levels: a balcony accessed by stairs and a ground-level, open-air room inside the pyramid. Before you go, carefully check the website for viewing times, and be sure to make a reservation if you plan to attend the twilight show. Reservations can be made only a week in advance, and the weekends can book up quickly. This Saturday’s twilight show, for example, is already sold out, but as of this writing the Friday and Sunday shows are available.

All shows are free. If you go at sunrise, as we did, keep in mind that the light sequence begins approximately 40 minutes before sunrise. As the website points out, “The time noted on the calendar is for the Sunrise light sequence start, not for sunrise itself. The Sunset light sequence begins about 8-10 minutes before sunset. Each sequence lasts approximately 40 minutes.” Twilight Epiphany is open every day except Tuesdays.

All material © 2006-2015 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.