South Lake Tahoe artist creates "Infinite Stare" for Burning Man

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - As tens of thousands of people start their trek to the Black Rock Desert, a South Lake Tahoe artist and her friends are finishing up an art piece that will be featured at 2022 Burning Man.

Kelly Smith Cassidy is no stranger to being a featured artist at Burning Man. This is the fourth time she has had her art on display at the annual event, and the third time with a lead piece.

Titled “Infinite Stare,” this new piece is described as a monumental sculpture of a head full of ideas by day and cosmos at night. From the distance, the head will look familiar; as if a forgotten culture had left it a millennia ago.

This installation represents ourselves while in ego (represented by day) and in oneness (night); that we are all a part of universal consciousness. Kelly said she experienced "being one with the universe" while meditating and is now putting that feeling into the art piece. She said she hopes people will find that same stillness when they experience "Infinite Stare."

During the day visitors can climb in and leave their thoughts inside the head (we all have thoughts in our head, right?) with a note stuck on the surface. Those thoughts will be removed at night when the experience changes. The floor of "infinite stare" will be covered in fur so burners can lay back and reflect on what they see on the ceiling. Kelly is creating a brain for the head by quilting felt.

Kelly and another local artist, Marianne Rosenfeld, have spent hours at a yard, welding, cutting, covering fiberglass with resin, and everything else needed to complete "Infinite Stare." There have been eight others volunteering on the project as well. Count on some late nights the rest of the week before the art piece heads to the Black Rock Desert.

"Marianne is my right-hand woman," said Kelly. "This is the third project we've done together. She is always excited and all in."

She is in need of a boat trailer to transport the sculpture to the desert. The boat trailer would prevent the head from rolling around on the journey. If anyone can help, contact her at kellysmithcassidy@yahoo.com.

For those at Burning Man, Kelly's piece will be 750 feet from "the man" at 9 o'clock.

When the week-long event is over, Kelly is hoping a city would take Infinite Stare on a short-term basis, with the hopes of finding a buyer.

Since the grant from Burning Man was issued before material prices skyrocketed, Kelly is hoping some people can donate to the project. More information is available on her website https://www.infinitestare.com/.

From her display listing on the Burning Man website: Where the face and should be is a blank area representing the melding of all faces. Inside the hollowed-out head is a place where people can sit. Drawn inside the shell of the head are all kinds of ideas with pictograms depicting ideas that can filter through a person’s head. At night, the pictographs are superseded by light images of the cosmos representing our infinite minds beyond the mind chatter.