Under the stars and onto the flatness of Mother Nature’s tongue sits a tiny town of about 2,000 people—nine hours west of Dallas and three hours east of El Paso—in one of the largest and least populous counties in Texas—truly, the middle of nowhere. Before Peru was even a possibility in my mind, there was this place, Marfa, calling to me from the deserts of West Texas, far away from my home in a place nobody really wants to go. I heard about her from a dear friend who had been there alone, that it was a tight-knit artist community and wonderful to visit, but I forgot about it for years, until I moved out, got burnt out on my job, and needed an escape. It felt as if I was in the Piña Colada Song and this place was calling to me from the personal ads. I booked an Airbnb a couple months ahead, took notes on artists I wanted to meet and galleries I wanted to see, filled up my car with gas, and went.
The stillness struck me the moment I exited Midland and Odessa. And the sand. Stillness, sand, and wind. July anywhere in Texas is miserably hot, but especially west of Odessa. I could feel the heat even inside my car with the A/C on full blast, like the Devil’s thumb was resting on my chest. But despite the heat and the wind and the sand, it was completely still. And I was completely free of Dallas. No email, no ringing phone, no sirens wailing through downtown, I was completely alone and completely free. I was the furthest away from home alone that I had ever been, and no one was telling me what to do.
You pass through the Davis mountains to get to Marfa and there is no cell service. I had no idea there were mountains in Texas—beautiful, desert things with cacti and scraggly crawling plants growing on them and roadrunners passing by me at their feet, along with snakes and other creatures I did not see. It was quiet in a way that scared me at first—not even the radio got signal here, but I read the road signs and soon the radio was back on, I cleared the mountains, and hoped that Marfa was in the distance, for I did not see it even as flat as it was. I turned the radio off. My mind drifted. I had learned to breathe under the Devil’s thumb, and maybe it wasn’t the Devil at all. I thought that perhaps it was just fear of the unknown.
I don’t remember how Marfa appeared, but suddenly, she was there. I was there. I drove through the square—quaint and unassuming exactly how I imagined it—and stopped at the only fast food in town—Dairy Queen. I called my Dad and my Nana, homesick and not at all at the same time, to let them know I made it safely. Marfa was indeed the love that I looked for. Sleepy and slow, yet full of life and art.
I was struck immediately by the work of Donald Judd. His artistic compound, “The Block”, was my first visit. I never understood minimalist art until then, and maybe I still don’t, but it resonated deeply with my soul as if it were playing a symphony only I could hear. Judd believed that his art was too precious to be carted around—disassembled and reassembled—to every gallery exhibition, so he took most of his work to Marfa and installed it permanently in his home. There was a bed in every building for him to sleep amongst his sculptures, perhaps to gather inspiration or solace.
I often think the same as Donald Judd, for although I would like to sell my paintings and have my work recognized, some are too precious to leave my home. I think that it is when you are able to recognize your own work—the mistakes, the beauty, the time spent—that you truly become an artist.
I visited Annemarie Nafziger’s studio next. She is an abstract painter, and although I already had a love of abstract art, I wanted to learn more from her. She is inspired by nature and the hikes she takes in Big Bend National Park, and although she sees natural plants and structures she reflects often in her work, some of it is made up, she says. I asked her why. “I want people to insert their own imaginations into my work,” she said. “It is more important to me that people experience my work from their perspective and their experiences, not mine.” I knew immediately what she meant. Her paintings and walks in nature were for her, not for others. She painted for the joy of it, not so someone could look at her painting and say, “Oh, that’s the Rio Grande.” I believe that is another marking of a true artist.
I did not regard myself as an artist when I went to Marfa, but in the months that followed I gained confidence to create work of my own, reflections of what I learned there. I think of Annemarie and Judd whenever I put my cloth to my canvas—I think of the couple I met who made lithographs and of Diego Warner whose work I saw in a gallery. I found inspiration in the desert and in the desert sky when I visited the McDonald Observatory—stars so many and so bright I could not even make out familiar constellations. The milky way was painted above my head with such brilliance I couldn’t even fathom how I thought I had seen the stars before—nothing compared to the night sky of West Texas. The area surrounding Marfa and Big Bend is a dark sky preserve held in place by a group of scientists there. The towns go dark at night so visitors can see the sky in all its true glory, the way our ancestors in ancient times must have seen it, the way the Egyptians wrote about the “beaten path of stars”; the Milky Way as we now call it. As I make my way as an artist now, I already want to go back. It still calls to me, from the second I left, that Piña Colada song put back in the personal ads.
I think I left a piece of me in Marfa, as I am sure I will leave a piece of me in each place I visit. More art, more life lived, more stars seen. That is the curse of traveling, you strew pieces of yourself around the world; make little homes for yourself. What makes a home? Is it where you are born, and you can’t escape it? Or is it where you end up—a place you choose for yourself?