Marfa and Surroundings

The high-desert town on Marfa in west Texas is renowned for being a funky art community. With a population of fewer than 2,000 it is surprisingly famous, primarily because of the artist Donald Judd who purchased large buildings and lots on which to install his minimalistic pieces in the early 1970’s. Other artists followed him and now there are a disproportionally large number of art galleries and installations throughout the town.

But it is unquestionably true that Marfa as a town hasn’t particularly benefited from its renown as an art destination. The photographs that I took in 2016, shown in this collection, reveal the lingering effects of the bygone era of government facilities that created a “boom” in Marfa during World War II. But the Superintendent of the Marfa school district told us that his town had the highest property values of any town in Texas, primarily because legacy ranchers in the area didn’t want the growth that new housing would bring and hence wouldn’t sell their property to developers. School teachers can’t afford rents in Marfa so have to go to Alpine to live.

Despite or because of the competing interests between the old guard and aspiring newcomers, Marfa has a distinctive bohemian vibe, with decrepit buildings adjoining art galleries and public art on display in unusual forms. My hope is that you can discern the tensions from some of the photographs here.

Marfa is located in an absolutely breathtaking area of Texas, with wide expanses of virgin land punctuated by high mountains. The wild beauty of the area brought several movie productions to the area in the 1950’s, including the hit “Giant” starring Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson.

Finally, Marfa is also famous for the still-unexplained natural phenomenon of the “Marfa Lights”, mysterious dancing lights that can be seen from the highway about 10 miles east of the town. I can attest to the fact that those lights do indeed exist and that they are worth seeing if you’re in this far-from-anywhere desert town!