Burning Man 1997 | Larry Harvey

Larry likes the word "prodigious." "Primal" would run a close second. "Looming" and "vast" would doubtless place. He has, by his own admission, a grandiose imagination. This is tempered, it should be added, by a love of friends, a fondness generally for people, and a keen appreciation of their characters, capacities and ideas. In his role as spokesperson for the Project, he is known for his hat. The famous Stetson, a pearl gray 7 3/8" Open Road, seldom leaves his head. It's partly worn, he tells us, in remembrance of his father, who wore the original. A picture hanging on his kitchen wall frames the Stetson at the center of a triptych. Immaculately suspended, almost glowing, it floats, a holy object in a sea of black. Flanking it are pictures of himself and his son Trey, dapperly gazing out at the world beneath its felt brim.

Larry is an adamant idealist, but pragmatic and patient with people--part visionary, part ironist, part planner. Most importantly, he is extremely skilled at getting other people to help him. Since founding the Project in 1986, he has overseen its operation. His duties include the design of Burning Man and Black Rock City and the conception and production of the Project's pageants. He also authors the Burning Man's bi-annual newsletter.

Larry's chief characteristic is a love of language and ideas. Animated by a notion he'll begin to talk-- massaging it with metaphors, analogies, repeating and rehearsing it, until, at times, his closest friends but feign an interest. Such a conversation can seem more a seance than a dialogue. This man who talks in spurts and stammers, whose words career like bats in flight, is clearly possessed. It must be admitted that he also has a way of making those he talks to feel like his companions--that together with him they are witness to a vast, prodigious, and, perhaps, a primal prospect--and that all they need do, in this sudden circumstance, is step into it.

Burning Man, People of Burning ManTrip BrownLarry Harvey