Some friends and I loaded up the truck with camera gear, road-trip snacks—including the requisite beef jerky—and warm clothes. Our destination: Sun Tunnels by Nancy Holt, in Utah’s northwest desert.

We had planned carefully: a winter solstice visit, lunch at the In-N-Out in Riverton (a first-time experience for two of us), and then the long drive into the desert.

At first glance, Holt’s Sun Tunnels look like oversized concrete culverts—something that might belong to an abandoned construction project, randomly left behind. But nothing about them is random. The four tunnels are precisely arranged to frame the rising and setting sun during the summer and winter solstices. Small holes drilled into the concrete cast projections of constellations—Draco, Perseus, Columba, and Capricorn—onto the tunnel interiors for those willing to step inside.

Works like this are often labeled “land art.” Another notable example, visible only metaphorically from here but nearby as the crow flies, is Spiral Jetty, created by Holt’s husband, Robert Smithson.

You can see the Sun Tunnels from nearly a mile away, and from that distance they are, frankly, unimpressive. All three of us felt underwhelmed as we approached—one could easily imagine an incomplete sewer project stranded in the desert.

But once you park, step out of the vehicle, and begin to walk among them, something changes. They line up, then don’t quite line up. They invite you to stand on top of them, lie inside them, wander through and away from them. The sky—constantly shifting—becomes part of the artwork itself.

As sunset approached, people gathered east of two aligned tunnels, waiting to see how the sun might be framed by the concrete tubes. We were fortunate. The clouds opened just enough to watch the sun drop toward the horizon.

After the sun disappeared, we turned the tunnels into a backdrop for our own experimentation. We took turns inside, “painting” with light—using an assortment of flashlights to add our own temporary marks to Holt’s permanent forms.

In the end, we were happy. The light-painting was fun and promising—and clearly something we want to refine. Like the Sun Tunnels themselves, it’s an experience that reveals more the longer you stay with it.