Courtesy the CLUI photographic archive, Los Angeles

Center for Land Use Interpretation, Kinder Morgan Pasadena terminal facility, Pasadena, Texas, 2008. Digital photograph, 22 x 15 in.

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For the past 15 years, the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI), an education and research organization headquartered in Culver City, California, has produced dozens of exhibitions and public programs about the built landscape of the United States. It has covered subjects as diverse as towns drowned to make reservoirs, tourist cave infrastructure, automotive test tracks, the end of the Mississippi River, crumbling land art, and the nation’s largest military base. This year, CLUI, working out of an office in the industrial fringe of Houston, is producing a number of exhibits about the "oilscape" of this country — the physical characteristics and places involved in and shaped by the petroleum industry. What follows is an excerpt from CLUI member Matthew Coolidge’s field log, recorded last fall in southeast Texas.

Thurs. Oct. 30 Port Arthur. Meet [CLUI associate] Steve Rowell at the airport and our pilot. We fly as far south as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve site at Big Hill, over the rig yards and LNG [liquefied natural gas] terminals at Sabine Pass, the line of petrochemical plants at Orange, and all of the refineries in the region. Nearly three hours in the air. This is the northeastern limit of the petroscape of the Texas Gulf Coast. Back on the ground, I list/label the Orange petrochem sites. Then visit the Museum of the Gulf Coast, which has a huge panoramic painting showing the history of the place, from prehistory to oil. It also has some oil-industry displays, and a Robert Rauschenberg room, as he’s from here. Nice anomaly in a local museum. Afterwards, I document company/complex names at Mont Belvieu. Little run-down roadside display has oil derrick, some valves, and a sign that says "Mont Belvieu: LPG [liquefied petroleum gas] Capital of the World." Indeed, it is. Head south to the Field Office. Download images to computer. Fri. Oct. 31 Houston. Another Gulf Coast sites photoflight. Meet the pilot, Duane, at Ellington Field, and Rowell and I do the aerial photo shoot with him over the large network of chemical plants at Baywood, the gas plants at Mont Belvieu, then south to Freeport, where Dow Chemical’s Texas Operations complex is remarkably vast. Looks like a machine-planet of the future. We also shoot the plants out by Sweeny, and it turns out Duane works there, at Chevron-Phillips. We return to the Field Office on the bayou to process images and info.

Sun. Nov. 2 Corpus Christi. Drive around refineries and port in the morning fog. Meet David at Corpus Christi Airport. Fly over the Corpus sites, as far north as Bay City, and as far south as Bishop. Over 500 photos between us of petrochem plants and oil sites. Drive from Brownsville east on the road to the coast, to the mouth of the Rio Grande, the southeasternmost corner of Texas. The road ends at the terminal beach, and people drive out on the sand. Dusk. Head toward Red Roof Inn, eat at chain BBQ place, themed "roadhouse" style.

Mon. Nov. 3 Brownsville. Definitely feels like another country, architecturally. Border patrol SUVs lurking, watching, all over; very active surveillance. Visit the Sable Palm Nature Preserve, a site that may be cut off by the proposed enlarged US-Mexico border fence. Jimmy Paz, the manager of the site, says he’s not sure what’s happening with the fence now, and doesn’t want to discuss it. Visit Port of Brownsville office, get list of port tenants. Head to airport. Meet the pilot, Buddy, who is 84 years old and has been flying since 1947. Amazingly brief flight — by the time we are at 500 feet, we are there. Make several circles over the port. The AmFELS oil-rig yard is one of the four or five major rig yards in the state. But the ship-breaking yards are especially fascinating — from the air, they look like slow-motion explosions of ships. This is probably the biggest ship-breaking site in the USA. It looks very third-worldy, with the ships pulled in to rough berths gouged in the dirt of the industrial canal. Fly in Cessna 172 with door off, making for easy maneuvering and good view. Drive back, past controversial Kenedy Ranch wind farm in distance, under construction (a lawsuit is currently trying to block it from being connected to the grid).