listen to Jessica Feldman's interview with Brenda about the event

An acoustic cross-country adventure. If a bell rings in a shopping mall parking lot, will anyone respond? On September 1, 2006, I set out on a cross-country, sound-performance journey to investigate the public's interactions with and reactions to the sonorous tones of a 250-pound cast-iron bell. From Michigan to New York to San Francisco, I am ringing the bell in small towns, city parks, shopping malls, rest stops, and more.
In the morning we headed to the Chianti Foundation in Marfa, built on a former army base, where Donald Judd set up his museum and100 mill aluminum boxes on the grounds. Brenda rang the bell in the parking lot, tolling against the sound of wind and the highway.
On our way out of Marfa, we stopped at a gas station to use the phone, where two guys jumped out of a pick up truck and asked to ring the bell, as their dog Diva, a domesticated dingo, responded with both fear and fascination.
We headed on through the desert, past Valentine, Texas, with its deserted roadside buildings. The landscape slowly changed from brown elevated desert to a rockier pink, the speed limit going up to 80, with the constant image of the border patrols on the highway.
Day27PM.Marfa, TX
By Jessica
The Marfa Mystery Lights. This was one of the wildest things I've ever seen. There are all sorts of theories explaining this phenomenon: scientific, metaphysic, science fiction. My favorite is that these are the ghosts of Conquistadors, still searching for gold.
As the sun set over Marfa, people gathered at the viewing sight outside of Alpine, Texas, all waiting for the arrival of the big mystery. I looked out into the horizon with the others, and heard Brenda ringing the bell from the parking lot. "What's that, a train?" a teenage guy asked his friend. "No, that's the bell lady." "Shut up," the other said. "No. Seriously. There's a lady with a bell. Go out and take a look." His friend looked at him skeptically, then took off to get a look for himself, as if the Bell Lady was as much of an extraterrestrial phenomenon as the lights.
In the afternoon we headed into Mexico, to the border town of Ciudad Acuna.
It's a very brief ride along the bridge that connects Del Rio to Acuna-- about as long, it seemed, as going about a ten or twenty block distance in Manhattan-- but once there, you know you're somewhere else. The feeling is immediate.
The signs and buildings have different colors, different designs. And every other block there's another dental office.
The streets were much narrower than in Del Rio, and we moved slowly, the bell tolling periodically. We got a lot of shout-outs from people hanging out along the sidewalks, some quite enthusiastic. Our favorite reactions were from children. School had just gotten out. A group of girls giggled, and seemed to enjoy the spectacle of a large passing bell. They especially loved it when we made the wrong turn onto a one-way street.
Three boys stopped to ring the bell and took postcards, waving as we drove off. My favorite reaction was from a schoolboy sitting on the sidewalk, who called out "Viva America" as we passed. It was hard to tell from his inflection how he meant it-- sarcastic, joking, mocking, supportive, some kind of verbal pat on the back-- I don't know. But I liked it.
Coming back into the US, a group of border police came close to the car, looking at both of us, and at the bell, with severity, and asking a lot of questions. But it changed fast. The group of police around the car grew a little. Their questions about where the bell was going and where it came from took on a new tone; lost the edge of looming trouble. One guy seemed to particularly like the idea of the journey onwards to Marfa.