chinati | Teardrop Trail

Teardrop Trail Log: March 27, 2016

Marfa was founded as a railroad water stop in the 1880’s. The Marfa Plateau on the edge of far West Texas was known for the high grass and ranching. That is until minimalist sculptor Donald Judd fell in love with Marfa and in 1971 moved to Texas to escape the New York art scene. He bought two large hangars that had been a training facility during WWII and eventually acquired dozens of buildings. His vision was to create a new kind of museum where large collections of individual artists’ work would be on permanent display in harmony with landscape and architecture, often referred to as an anti-museum. This resulted in permanent installations of contemporary art that are among the largest and most beautiful in the world.

Marker of Marfa

Marfa has become an unlikely arts mecca. The Chinati and Judd Foundations were created after Judd’s death in 1994. Other foundations, art collectives, theaters, performance spaces and nonprofit organizations have come to town. One source describes downtown as overrun by galleries.

Art tourism soars. The artsy population grows as new waves of artists move to Marfa to live and work. Celebrities continue to make pilgrimages. Marfa is a thriving international arts destination that is about as far removed from the pretentious art scenes like New York or Amsterdam.

Teardrop Trail Log: March 27, 2016

We had been camping for three nights in Study Butte, and decided to treat ourselves to a real bed and a shower. After checking into the hotel in Marfa, we turned our attention to the immediate problem: it was Easter Sunday; would anything be open for dinner? I also wanted a mocha if we could find one. It turned out that Jett’s Grill in the Hotel Paisano was open and accepting reservations. The prospect of a special dinner beckoned. We just had an hour or two to kill. After unhitching the Ambassador, we headed for the center of Marfa.

We found not one, but two coffeeshops in town, and we stopped at the first one: Frama. Mocha in hand, we decided to walk the area around the courthouse. The streets are very wide and flat and lay on a grid. In contrast to the other West Texas towns we had encountered so far, Marfa seemed very prosperous. There were many buildings that had been well restored, and more than a few that had been restored and modified to suite more modern purposes.

The Presidio County Courthouse, built in the Second Empire style at a cost of $60,000 in1886, is a stunning example of Texas public architecture. Directly across the street like so many other county seats, was the jail. Nearby were several churches — all beautifully maintained. St Paul’s Episcopal especially appealed to me with it’s river rock façade. Across the street was a small bungalow that had been completely renovated in a spare, mid-century modern style. It even had a Jesus Morales sculpture in the front yard. Marfa is clearly an artful place with the resources to show it.

On the other side of the courthouse, Highland Street stretched south into the distance. This is the main street of Marfa, and is lined with buildings that echo the town’s past. The Opera House, National Bank and Glascock buildings are but three examples. Most interesting to me however was the Hotel Paisano. Built in 1930 in the Spanish Revival style, and anticipating the oil boom that never came, it hosted area cattle ranchers who came to Marfa to buy and sell their herds. In June of 1955 however, Warner Bros. came to film the movie Giant. As the production’s headquarters, the Hotel Paisano hosted Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean and 150 other cast and crew.

What a surprising town to discover in West Texas. After just a cruel tease, we’ll have to go back.