Past the mountains and onto the flatness of Mother Nature’s tongue lies quiet in the desert a town called Marfa, Texas. I called my trip a pilgrimage because that is how it felt– like I was called by some otherworldly force whispering into my ear. She is nine hours west of Dallas and three hours east of El Paso, truly nowhere. Rocks and ill-shapen cacti make up her floor, and the skies above are untamed and unpolluted. I wanted to drown in those skies, as dark and starry or as blue and beaming as they were, because all my problems and personal failures were laid bare before them and meant nothing.
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Notes:
I think the beautiful thing about my trip is that I got to revive a part of myself that inadvertently died when I got my job. A more creative part, more abstract. I got to connect with artists and gallery owners in a way I don’t get to connect with my friends, family, and coworkers in Dallas. I visited Anne Marie Nafziger’s studio and spoke with her about the beauty and the freedom of abstraction. Art isn’t necessarily about meaning or even intent, it is about the way each person experiences a piece and the emotions it evokes, sometimes concrete and sometimes something you can’t put to words. Anne Marie’s use of color drew me in. She is inspired by nature and the desert landscape, but she paints from memory rather than pictures. I connected with her use of purple in a few of her paintings, and it had a certain dreamlike quality I struggle to describe. It was a joy to view her work in the place where it is born, but mostly, I just enjoyed talking with her.
Another connection I got to make was with Robert and Valerie Arber. I found their shop by accident and rang the doorbell, and Valerie allowed me into their space and introduced me to the world a lithographs and printmaking. I got to see prints Robert made for the famed Donald Judd as well as more recent work by other artists who had the chance to etch into his stone and collaborate with him. Robert considers himself a collaborator first, and him and Valerie making a lovely power couple. ‘
It was a privilege to view the late Donald Judd’s permanent work on his home compound in Marfa. I think he is reason enough to journey there– his minimal creations allow the mind to wander and fill in the gaps with your own subconscious. I particularly loved his use of the natural light that filled the buildings on his “Block,” and pictures don’t do it justice.
During my time in Marfa I spent a lot of time at a coffee shop/newspaper company called the Sentinel and had the opportunity to indulge my own creativity and work on a project not quite ready for the world yet– my first work of fiction in over ten years. Some of my friends know of my last work of fiction I scrubbed from the internet, a slightly insensitive novella a wrote when I was twelve… no twelve year old should be allowed to publish anything on their minds, at all. But my current project explores my interest in horror and my past Shakespeare reading, hopefully something a little more tasteful than what I wrote when I was in middle school.
On my way home I drove through Big Bend National Park and dipped my hands into the Rio Grande.
Run to your places of quiet whenever you can. Mine tastes like a Jambon Buerre and sounds like Led Zeppelin.
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