Local Artists Hughes and Wilkes, OH Weekend

Recent work by two Marfa-based artists, Martha Hughes and Leslie Wilkes, will be on display at Hughes’s studio during Chinati Open House weekend. The studio is located at 407 W. San Antonio St. (Highway 90), across from the Judd Block. The exhibit will be open for viewing October 5, 6, and 7 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.


Hughes will show acrylic paintings from a series entitled “Scenes.” The series comprises images of mundane living spaces painted in flat areas of color. “Stylistically, paintings in the Scenes series are influenced by my interest in artwork by children, outsiders and the insane,” said Hughes. “My intention is to portray the unsettling feelings of disorientation and alienation that can unexpectedly wash over us, often in the most familiar, commonplace environments.”


Hughes received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions across the USA. She works in a variety of media, including paint, photography and computer-based media. Her photographic work is represented in Marfa by Marty Carden’s Highland Gallery.


Wilkes will exhibit new paintings and gouaches based on geometric design. The works in this exhibition explore variations on a single grid-based repeat. The pattern, appropriated from a 1970’s graphics guidebook, begins as a line drawing, within which Wilkes uses layers of color to explore variable compositions. Every color shift redirects the rhythm of the pattern, creating a kind of controlled chaos.


The vibrant color combinations visually bend, warp and undulate within the painting. These effects disrupt the viewer’s ability to process the image as a whole and induce an unconscious attempt to reassemble the pattern. Looking at the paintings, labyrinths of shape and color, yields a kind of meditative pleasure.



Currently residing in Marfa, Wilkes received a BA from the University of Texas and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has had solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Austin and Marfa. She attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and was the recipient of the Milton and Sally Avery fellowship at the MacDowell Colony. Before moving to Marfa in 2005, she was Fine Arts Graduate Program Manager and faculty member at the California College of the Arts.


Where: 407 W. San Antonio Street (across from the Judd Block)

This Year's Rock Music

Saturday night a free concert by Sonic Youth will be held at the Thunderbird Hotel's newly renovated performance space. In 2006, the Village Voice's Robert Christgau called Sonic Youth "the best band in the universe." The band was formed in 1981 on New York's Lower East Side by guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo and bassist Kim Gordon; drummer Steve Shelley joined the group in 1986. Moore and Ranaldo had previously performed in the "guitar orchestras" organized by Glenn Branca in the early eighties, and a novel approach to the electric guitar has always been an essential part of the band's signature sound. The group experiments with unorthodox tunings, layers of overtones, and song forms that veer from punk rants to blasts of atonal dissonance to extended jams to tightly structured three-minute pop tunes. In 2006 Sonic Youth turned 25 and released their 20th album, Rather Ripped. The band tours frequently and will play their first dates in China later this year, in addition to performing their classic 1988 double-album Daydream Nation (inducted into the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry in 2006) at festivals in Europe. The Sonic Youth concert is co-sponsored by Ballroom Marfa and the Thunderbird Hotel.

Vogel/ Private Landscapes at Colores

Colores Gallery is pleased to announce that painter Nathalie Vogel will return to the gallery on OH Weekend. Her exhibition of new paintings, Private Landscapes, will open at Colores Gallery, 904 West San Antonio (Hwy 90) on October 5, 2007 at 7pm.

Vogel's new paintings present a new perspective on the landscape tradition. Through a diversity of views internal, external, aerial, imaginary-- a unique and relentless questioning emerges: what are we looking at? Do we actually see what we are looking at? Confronted with the exterior putative realities, it is one's own vision charged with one's own culture, past, and memories that the spectator must confront.

The exhibit moves from reappropriations-- of a kitsch vacation advertisement (with an octopus snuggling with a kitten), or of an abstract painting by another artist (here Pauline Brouin) to realistic compositions evoking psychological tensions. Two landscapes of Marfa itself are included; one a view through the artist's hair. Each view takes a step or two away from reality, as the artist seeks to take a considered distance from her surroundings.

Nathalie Vogel studied classical painting in Paris at the Academy de la Grande Chaumiere and in New York at the New York Academy of Art. Dimitri Salmon, Curator of Paintings for the Louvre, praised her technical virtuosity in his 2006 book, Ingres: Regard Croises. Her work can be found in many private collections nationally and internationally.

The opening reception for Nathalie Vogel will take place on Friday October 5 2007 at 7pm at Colores Gallery, 904 West San Antonio (Hwy 90). The gallery is open Wednesday-Sunday 11am-5pm or by appointment.

How 'bout You Become a Chinati Member

As a good friend of mine says, "'tis the reason for the season" after all. As you prepare for a fun and educational experience in Marfa, I think the best way to show your support is to become a Chinati member. Funding provided by Chinati Foundation members is essential to sustaining the museum's daily operations. Memberships enable Chinati to care for the permanent collection and continue providing exceptional educational programs and exhibitions, inlcuding Open House Weekend.

Chinati offers memberships at a variety of levels (from $100 to $10,000), with special benefits available at each category of giving.

Just mail a check to the following address, simple as that:

Chinati Foundation
PO Box 11351
Cavalry Row
Marfa TX 79843

Or charge your membership to a credit card, if desired. Gifts of stock are also welcome and appreciated. Contact Chinati for additional information on these payment methods (432.729.4362).

Who's Looking for a Family Practice Physician?

Do we have a doctor on the way? A company called Community Health Systems posted the following job offer at Job.com. This is a good sign, no?

"Want to practice rural Family Practice with OB in a picturesque, --artsy-- community with eclectic galleries and shops, beautiful vacation homes and a mild year-round climate in sunny Texas? Marfa (pop about 2,500) is known for it's laid-back lifestyle, flavorful arts scene, and beautiful setting near the Davis mountains of southwest Texas. Located just 25 minutes from Alpine (pop about 9,000), Marfa is a great place to practice home-town medicine and enjoy the good life. Alpine offers a variety of activities including university sports, theater, etc. This is a great opportunity to live and practice in a town with friendly people, low unemployment, almost non-existent crime, a low cost of living and even lower managed care! El Paso's international airport is only about 2 easy-driving hours away."

Click here for more info.

The Marfa.Org ®@ŋd¤m‡zЄ®

There Will Be Blood, Trailer #2
Create Your Own Photo Album in Our Gallery
"I Have Seen the Lights" T-shirt [etsy]
What Was Happening This Time Last Year?
Walking Marfa [blog entry]

Random Pic From the Marfa.Org Gallery

This OH Weekend keep an eye peeled for the meanest lunch truck around - The Food Shark is always a great way to grab a quick bite while tromping aroung town.

another random pic

Will La Entrada Kill Marfa?

I hate to pose the question in such a blunt way, but this is the sentiment at the heart of the controversial La Entrada Al Pacifico project. Obviously, if you live in the Big Bend area you've known for a long time about this proposed trade corridor linking Texas with the Pacific Ocean. However, I suspect that many "friends of Marfa" are still unaware of this important issue. Our readership at Marfa.Org is going through the roof right now as people "tune up" for the upcoming OH Weekend. So I'll take this opportunity to spread some knowledge and point to some helpful resources where we can get involved and fight this thing.

Actually, at this point, there's probably no way to stop La Entrada alltogether - the goal now is to control where this major highway is routed. As it stands the route is planned to cut through Marfa and Alpine and bring with it potentially 2500 semi-trucks per day. Obviously the traffic, noise and pollution would drastically change this peaceful and serene part of the world. But, being an architect, I can't help but think of all the negative side effects to the built environment like chain motels, fast food joints, mega truck-stops.

Organizations like StopThe Trucks.org and the Big Bend Regional Sierra Club are mobilizing to have our voices heard by the decision makers. Ideas at work include creating a relief route that will bypass Marfa, and the possibility of switching the planned corridor from auto to rail.

Links: Interactive Map [google maps], Letter Writing Campaign, StopTheTrucks.org, La Entrada [at wikipedia], Trucks Threaten BB Heritage [Sierra Club].

Velcro Van on the Prowl for OH Weekend

A MOBILE GALLERY OF MINIATURE STITCHED ART

Velcro Van is a customized cargo van with Velcro-lined walls supporting a gallery of miniature stitched works on fabric. All work is under 8”x8” and involves embroidery, appliqué, crewel, quilting, hand or machine stitching. Velcro Van will cruise around Marfa during Open House weekend visiting various locations and offering impromptu viewings of the work in and on the van, as well as on Velcro smocks worn by the gallerists. The Velcro Van will visit landmarks, local hotspots, tourist attractions, lectures, film screenings, galleries, openings, events and other cultural attractions, bringing the miniature art to the people.

Artists: Victoria Cabrera, Carol Cutshall, Ricki Hill, Kysa Johnson, Lorna Leedy, Mat James, Caroline Rankin, Louise Riley, Katherine Shaughnessy

Opening Reception w/ champagne & tequila bar:
Friday, October 5th, 5pm-9pm @ 603 W. Galveston Street, curbside

Look for the mobile show at the following locations, 4pm until the gas runs out, daily/nightly:
by the side of the road, Hwy. 67 & 90, Marfa Lights viewing center, Prada Marfa, Marfa Public Radio station, Cibolo Creek Ranch, the Sonic Youth show, wherever anything else is happening

Crawl on in and take a look.

The Marfa.Org ®@ŋd¤m‡zЄ®

Sonic Youth, Thurston Moore Line Up Shows Together & Apart

Fashion Show at Tillie Arts Tonight, 6pm

Artist David Rabinowitch [artnet]

Don't Mess with Marfa [blogger]

Amy Cook Review [quirkee.com]

"You may or may not have heard of Marfa, Texas folk-rock singer Amy Cook. But you probably have already heard her music. Her songs have appeared on TV shows like Dawson's Creek, Veronica Mars, The L Word, and Laguna Beach. After noticing a certain theme running through her latest record, Amy said, "Marfa’s nothing but open sky and a million stars and I think that got me on those sort of analogies—thinking about the bigger picture of it all, putting yourself in the place of just being here on this planet, where you can cover the moon with..."

Ballroom's Fall Show Sets Stages of Sand

Every Revolution is a Roll of the Dice opens at Ballroom Marfa next Saturday, September 22 and will be on display through Open House weekend and until February 3, 2008.

Artists: Barry X Ball . Huma Bhabha . Carol Bove . Gardar Eide Einarsson . Jason Fox . Wayne Gonzales . Robert Grosvenor . Guyton\Walker . Adam Helms . Corey McCorkle . Wangechi Mutu . John Miller . Haim Steinbach . Mika Tajima . Joan Wallace

Every Revolution is an exhibition of sculptural objects that, by way of their presentation, can be seen as actors on a stage. The floor of the main gallery will be covered with a thin layer of black volcanic sand and the floor of the second gallery will be covered with white sand. All free-standing objects will be placed in the sand. Viewers will walk around the perimeter of a desert/desert island. The objects may appear to them as stranded, as castaways. This staging calls to mind the poignancy and absurdity of a Samuel Beckett play.

The gallery becomes a landscape in which various objects, particularly figurative objects, are isolated in small groupings to create a heightened sense of interaction between them. A marble head by Barry X Ball and an unfired clay head by Huma Bhabha, for example, may seem to be looking together at Joan Wallace's "Pool Ladder Painting 2" - a large table-top work that has a trap door through which an aluminum pool ladder has been placed. Each piece activates the other. The trap door in the table top can be seen as referring to the trap doors of a stage and a gallows. The works by Barry X Ball and Huma Bhabha both represent a scarred or wounded head: the exposed chicken wire in Huma Bhabha's work is skeletal, as if part of the head has been blown away; the cracks and fissures in the stone in Barry X Ball's work can be read as scars or head wounds.

The works in this show are meant to be read as symbolic objects, conveying through association and interaction a sense of a troubled but not hopeless world. This is, after all, a world in which artists continue to give form to the bigger questions - to life and death - and to create objects that are as beautiful as they are poignant. The thirteen artists and two artists' collaboratives in Every Revolution is a Roll of the Dice all live and work in New York city, having moved there from diverse locations in the United States, Europe, Scandinavia, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Every Revolution Is A Roll of the Dice is organized by Bob Nickas, a New York based critic and freelance curator who has realized an extraordinary number of exhibitions for galleries and museums in the United States and Europe since the mid 1980s. He was curatorial advisor at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York between 2004 and 2007, and his writing has appeared in numerous publications including Artforum, Afterall and Index. He has authored several books - Theft Is Vision (forthcoming, 2007), Collection Diary (2005), and Live Free or Die: Collected Writings 1985-1999 (2000) are three examples.

Mika Tajima and her band, New Humans, will perform in Ballroom Marfa's outdoor courtyard on opening night, with band and instruments on a white sand stage.

Gallery Walk-thru with curator and artists is scheduled for 2pm on opening day.

Calling All Visionaries: El Cosmico '07

2nd Annual El Cosmico Weekend. September 21-23, escape to El Cosmico for another epic party adventure. Together we will build the fort of our dreams.

Camping
Bring your temporary dwelling and something to sit on and we will provide the wide-open spaces. Basic amenities are available on-site. Cost is $20 per tent or car-camping vehicle. Bring your bathing suit for hot tubbing and perhaps a dip in the pool at Balmorhea on the way out of town.

Food & Drinks
RSVP and pay early for Lambert's BBQ Saturday night ($12), pancake breakfast on Sunday morning ($8), and for coffee both mornings ($5). Marfa Food Shark will offer their delicious falafel fare for sale Friday night and Saturday daytime, and there will be a cash-bar selling beer and wine both Friday and Saturday nights. Water will be available courtesy of Richard's Rainwater and Topo Chico all weekend – bring a refillable jug, or buy one when you arrive.

Music
Music begins at seven o'clock both nights.Friday: Zane McWilliams, The Steps, Gulf of Mexico, The Pleasures of Merely Circulating, and introducing the Savage TripSaturday: Barbara Lynn, Adam Bork, Tift Merritt, Rebecca Gates, Amy Cook and Lil' Cap'n Travis.

Trailers
El Cosmico is all about trailers – renovated trailers and "ghost trailers" will be open for tours and hanging out. Come and witness the evolution of the master plan.

Baseball
A new tradition is born – watch Austin and Marfa go toe to toe in a game of hardball. Austin's Texas Playboys, led by Captain Jack Sanders, throw down against Senor Joey Benton's Los Yonke Gallos de Marfa. Three o'clock on Saturday at Vizcaino Field.

Beautiful Mayhem
This is what we hope to create. We hope you'll join us. Register Now.

Get In/ Look For: Open House '07 Gallery Guide

This year's Open House will surely have its share of fresh and unique twists, some destined for a one-time-viewing and others thankfully here-for-good. Something new to look for this year, whether you are a connoisseur or a curator, is the first ever Open House Gallery Guide. This will be a full-color, free publication to help folks find out about the goings-on, and help gallery owners, artists, and roadside attractions advertise their shows. A run of 1000 copies is planned which will be published with funds generated through the sale of advertising space.

Publisher Mercer Black, a fourth-generation Marfan and graphic designer, wanted to keep the options available to a wide range of artists. So, the listing sizes range from an 1/8 page (for only 20 bucks) up to a full page. I understand the back and inside cover are already purchased and the whole thing is going fast, so interesed parties should email Mercer or call 512.965.9000.

The deadline to get in the guide is September 21st (if space is still available.) For more information, click here.

The Marfa.Org ®@ŋd¤m‡zЄ®

Restaurants Bloom in the West Texas Desert
Cattle Raisers Association to Meet in Marfa
Donald Judd by Donald Judd (Hardcover) [eBay]
Photo: Mexican Refugees Heading to Marfa [eBay]
Donald Judd, Introduction [Wikipedia]
Iconic Prints in Coming Auctions (Judd)

Galleri Urbane's Fall '07 Exhibits

Galleri Urbane announces their annual fall show which will run from September through November and, of course, will be viewable during Open House Weekend.

In Gallery 1, a group show featuring Vermont artist Ahren Ahrenholz's flat wall pieces. Ahren has spent his life in the world of environmental design; dwellings, bridges, urban parks & gardens, rural land reclamation. In addition to this discipline are furniture design and pottery. The common thread in his work is rational thought expressive of the cummualative experience in materials and technical processes. Since 1995 Ahren has worked as an "Object Maker". Immersion in this world of the unknown is the opposite of past involvement in the world of the "rational". "Issues of instinct, feeling, and virtues of "relative failure/discovery" define my work existence." says Ahrenholz. His primary concerns exist in the questioning, refining, giving nuance to the world of visual language.

Gallery artist Michael Berman's 100 PLATE installation will be exhibited. Berman has been photographing the southwest for 25 years. He has complied over 400 plate works in the process. The plates are sliver gelatin prints mounted on aluminum. Each fine silver print is unique and individually created by the artist; each is subtly toned, dissected, and affixed to the aluminum plates.

Berman was born in New York City, came to Colorado College where he studied biology and has wandered thoughout the southwest ever since. Finding science too narrow, he later studied photography and earned an MFA at Arizona State University in Tempe. Ten years ago he settled in southwestern New Mexico where he now lives in the Mimbres Valley near San Lorenzo. His photographs are included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Amon Carter Museum, the Museum of New Mexico, and Fort Worth Museum of Art. He has received Painting Fellowships from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the Wurlitzer Foundation, his installations and paintings have been reviewed in Art in America, and exhibited throughout the country.

Also in the fall show is gallery artist Kate Carr. Carr's MUSLIN BOX installation and the muslin stack works hang in thin, page-like layers that create a densely textured surface against the wall. In their present states these objects are evidence of simple interventions, utilitarian processes turned upside down.

Also in Gallery 1 is Paula Roland a visiting artist from Sante Fe. Roland will exhibit her graphite, encaustic on handmade korean paper works. Roland's work examines the nature of how we see and our perception of reality. According to chaos theory, in dynamical systems, patterns called strange attractors form in what appears to be chaos. These reveal a hidden order. Roland's paintings are fantasy fractals—fields, waves, frequencies, cycles, currents and particles—making the unknown visible. Roland received her M.F.A. University of New Orleans, and B.A. St. Mary's Dominican College, New Orleans, LA.

Gallery artist Jason Willaford will exhibit his most recent encaustic paintings. While each of Willaford's paintings maintain individuality, in a grouping they form a narrative that takes shape, creating cadence and hue. The individual paintings become rhyming and often unrhymed lines in a poem, each playing off of one another depending on the arrangement like a quatrain or haiku. Willaford is currently working on larger canvases where each panel connects a continuum of the horizon lines. (Willaford recently had a solo show at Boltax Gallery N.Y and a group exhibit Scope Hamptons art fair. He will also exhibit Dec 6,7 during Art Miami with Koelsch Gallery, Houston.)

In Gallery 2, a solo show featuring visiting Sante Fe artist Munson Hunt's paintings and sculpture. Munson's recent enamel on plywood paintings come from her work as a sculptor thinking in 3-D. After 22 years of sculpture and object making the paintings are still about form, relationship and inspired by nature. The negative space is observed closer and shapes that almost touch or do connect are in relation to how we speak to each other. The relation of presence and absence, energy of two forms meeting and whether they crowd each other or compliment each other in space is the study of these new works.The plywood lends references to modernism and the industrial age. The grain of the wood lends a background to the shapes painted on the surface. The surface is glossy and rich with enamel and smooth wood. The very simple shapes and space between shapes are the focus.

In Gallery 3 is a solo exhibit featuring gallery artist Peter Voshefski. Voshefskis paintings are concerned with the sublime pleasureful anxiety in the specific moments and places that inhabit life’s experiences. These things evoke the questions: What is here? What is missing? What is desired? In this spirit the artist paints with explicit and implicit elements of space and time, and a language of desire, longing, history, and mythology. The paintings reveal as much as they conceal in a translucent mist of images and fragments that occupies empty spaces. Peter was Born: 1967 in Cincinnati, Ohio he received his BFA: University of Cincinnati 1991 and MFA: University of New Mexico 2002.

In Gallery 4 (which is usually Jason Willaford's studio), gallery artist Bret Aaker's recent wood-burning acrylic paintings will be on display.

For more information, see the Galleri Urbane website.