The Marfa.Org ®@ŋd¤m‡zЄ®

Triangle Popularity [MyWestTexas.com]
"With its mountains, art colony, mystery lights and historic sites, the Alpine-Fort Davis-Marfa area has become a prime getaway and retirement spot for Texans and people across the country. "Each community is very different from the other, but they are very close in distance," and all have experienced steady growth in recent years..."

Look Who's Selling [Wall Street Journal, subscription req'd]
"It was one of the most talked-about moves of the season. This spring, a seller brought an unprecedented 36 sculptures by influential 20th-century artist Donald Judd to auction at once, alarming some dealers and collectors, who feared that a sudden glut of Judd works on the market could devalue the artist's work..."

1936 Presidio County History Book
1947 Calendar from Bill's Feed Store, Marfa
Vintage Coca-Cola Bottle, bottled in Marfa, Texas
Donald Judd Christie's Auction Catalog

Writers' Program Adds Color to Marfa [MyWestTexas.com]
"Eighty poets, novelists, non-fiction writers and translators have been afforded free lodging, food and expenses since Residency Manager Doug Humble came here in 2000 and he says mutual compatibility between the writers and townsfolk helps sustain it.
Some writers are friendly, some are not particularly and most earnestly want to concentrate on their work and get something done. Humble said the natives help by being cordial but not intrusive..."

Pool-side Movies at the Thunderbird Hotel

Join us for pool-side movies at The Thunderbird Hotel! Announcing our mid-summer pool-side movie series, kicking off with Jaws Sunday, July 30th. Our next film will be Close Encounters of the Third Kind on Sunday, August 13th and we'll follow that up with It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World on Sunday, August 27th. Join us for a night under the stars, beside the pool with your feet up, eating popcorn in front of the big screen. All films will be shown around the pool at 600 West San Antonio in Marfa. We'll provide seating and inner-tubes for use during the movies. The Thunderbird Lounge will be serving buckets of beer and popcorn.

The Marfa.Org ®@ŋd¤m‡zЄ®

Marfa Adobe Houses, Historical Photo, 1917
Marfa Downtown, Historical Photo, 1921
Movie News for The Marfa Lights
Man knifed in Marfa by San Antonio Homicide Suspect
Hitchhiker stabbed driver near Marfa
Man Wanted In Wife's Slaying Arrested
Excerpt from A Critical History of 20th C. Art
DVD: Two Sculptors - Donald Judd, Tony Cragg

David Byrne on Marfa, Texas

Singer Songwriter and former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne contemplates "Art, Money, Industry and Landscape" in the context of his recent trip to Marfa, Texas.



An excerpt from Part 1:
I’d never been to this area, so when my friends Terry and Jo Harvey Allen announced that they’d be having their biennial wedding anniversary blowout here it seemed like a great opportunity to see them — and all the singer-songwriter and artist friends of theirs who will arrive. It’s also a chance to see the spectacular landscapes around here... It was during the prep for True Stories that I met Jo Harvey and Terry. They were recommended to me by Joan Tewkesbury, screenwriter of “Nashville” and a number of other films... She said I HAD to see Jo Harvey’s performance work and listen to Terry’s music, which I did. We became friends and over many get-togethers in Santa Fe and elsewhere I got to know some of the Allens’ circle of friends — many of whom are also artists or singer-songwriters. Their New Year’s Eve parties would often end, as is common for Texas musicians (and Brazilian ones too) with a guitar being passed around and everyone who wrote or sang taking a turn and singing a song, often until late into the wee hours. (This tradition was continued here around the Thunderbird hotel fireplace, where most of the others stayed.) It took me a bit to get used to this homey approach to music and performance. New Yorkers are sadly more “professional” in their attitude towards their art. We usually perform for money under controlled circumstances. We see ourselves as artistes whose performances... Part 1

And from Part Two:
Where to begin with an attempt at detangling the threads of recent Marfa history? The presence of the Art Mob, lead by the early 70s arrival of the late NY artist Donald Judd, is pervasive now, but everyone asks why? How?
As far as I can piece together the Marfa area had gone through a 12-year drought when Judd bought a house. Therefore real estate was incredibly cheap and plentiful. The town was on the verge of closing the door and turning off the lights — many large structures, banks, supermarkets, savings and loans — all abandoned. So here is an artist that had passed through this way previously, and had also admired the spacious desolate landscape in Baja. He had purchased a whole building in SoHo previously — this guy was a smart cookie — where his own work and that of his friends was on semi-permanent display. The notion that he could control and aestheticize the manner of presentation, the context, well it all must have been attractive. My guess is that the wide-open spaces of Texas offered the lure of more such opportunities.... full journal entry

Paul Thomas Anderson's Photo Blog

If you haven't seen film director Paul Thomas Anderson around town then you don't get out much (or, of course, you have no idea who he is or what he looks like.) PTA, as he is affectionately called by his fans, is in town filming the major motion picture There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day Lewis (DDL?) (Do you have to go by all three names to be invlolved in the picture?, wonders MRB) Anyway, if you want to see some photographs taken by the acclaimed director, visit his blog LittleBostonNews.com. Photos range from some premature Fourth of July fireworks to karaoke at Ray's to hanging out on the set.

The Marfa.Org ®@ŋd¤m‡zЄ®

Marfa Army Airfield Pilot's Yearbook, 1944
DONALD JUDD, by Barbara Haskell, 1988 1st Ed
Artist Ken Price's Website

Village Farms Greenhouse, Marfa - "In March 1997 this forty acre intensive agriculture facility... was constructed. Full scale operations began in January 1998... With an elevation equal to that of Denver, Colorado, this facility was strategically placed to receive abundant light for growing during the winter and cooler temperatures during summer nights. Village Farms, - Marfa Division is dedicated to growing cluster (on the vine) tomatoes from September through June."

With a Coat of New Paint, Revealing the True Judd

[New York Times] Donald Judd, the Minimalist master who hated the term Minimalism and much else about the art world, really hated what he saw when he walked into the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1990 and examined an untitled work of anodized aluminum he had created a quarter-century earlier.

At some point, in trying to restore the damaged work, the museum had repainted it. Judd declared it ruined. But just how it should be fixed was an open question, and Judd died in 1994, leaving the Whitney with a piece it might never be able to show. Sixteen years later the sculpture has re-emerged as an important part of "Full House," the museum's 75th anniversary show, opening today. And the story of its journey from storeroom to starring role is a cautionary tale about the difficulties of trying to restore art without the artist's help.

In 2002 the museum began trying to figure out how to fix the work and had... read the full article here.