The line also intersects the White House, the National Cathedral, and the Naval and Air Force academies, all of which affirmed its significance and power to Champion. "We originally wanted to call it the 'Peace Line,'" he says. "But we knew the White House wouldn't want anything to do with peace."
The practical goal of the project (aside from the energy pulses) is to facilitate the installation of a large-scale public art piece in each of the 15 states that the 28-mile-wide line intersects. But its goal, to Champion himself, is much bigger than that.
James Sanders
The seven-ring Cretan labyrinth.
James Sanders
Dr. Alex Champion.
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"When I looked at it, I saw enormous energy pulses and knew that we needed to build it," he says. "I know there would be so much energy in this thing and it would light up."
It's more difficult to scoff at such statements than one would think because of the conviction with which Champion says them. "I know some of these things might sound crazy," Joan Champion says, "but I also know Alex, and I know he is not crazy."
Lauren Artress hardly considers the "Art Line" crazy. She values it as an important symbol of the growing interest in her practice. "Something like [the 'Art Line'] would help ground the movement across the country, help raise awareness about how labyrinths can be a real part of people's everyday lives."
So far the Labyrinth Society has embraced the project, and Alex and Joan Champion have signed on a team of 12 other artists along the line to assist local construction efforts. They are currently seeking nonprofit status and lobbying for commissions in communities across the 15 states.
"I have followed the progress of the Artline Project since its beginning and I am always fascinated to hear of new sites being added to the line," Jeff Saward writes via e-mail. "The installation of circuitous labyrinths in a linear alignment across a continent will surely enter the folklore of labyrinth legend in the future."
"Alex is a very determined person," says the Labyrinth Society's Gael Hancock. "Sometimes he's so stubborn that you want to hit him with a frozen fish, but it's [because of] that stubbornness and determination to see his plans through that he completes what he sets out to do."
Regardless of whether the "Art Line" fulfills Champion's mystical vision, he has already achieved something extraordinary. His works are at once hills of dirt reshaped into compelling artworks and allegorical monuments to others like him, seekers on a meandering path. With his labyrinths, Champion has -- literally and figuratively -- made a lasting signature.
As he reaches the center of the Cretan labyrinth, he looks east and faces his own shadow, growing longer with the angle of the afternoon sun, rising and falling across the deep grooves of the earthwork's walls. Soon he will return to the head of the trail, where he began, but first he pauses for a moment to gaze in the direction of his other labyrinths, which form a straight line that points across the Anderson Valley, toward the tireless Sierras and the dark plains beyond.
