Though we commonly congregate together in towns and cities, often reaching skyward in towering, concrete high rises, there has always been an allure for the magic of the middle of nowhere. One such oddly enchanting place is Marfa, Texas, a sunbaked, wind-kissed one-horse town quietly nestled among the vast grasslands of the Chihuahuan Desert.
While Marfa’s well-written town motto goes: “Tough to get to. Tougher to explain,” most residents and visitors would reckon that Marfa’s magic comes from its sheer space. The sky out there feels utterly infinite. The night reveals a map of constellations that seem to redefine perspective. The terrain looks barren, but if you slow down with the sun and pay attention to the light, the shadows cast an everchanging view of the landscape throughout the day. Out in Marfa, for the cowboys, the cattlemen, and the creatives alike, that very space—to roam, to think, to dream—explains it all.
Rising from the dust and into our collective consciousness with the arrival of renowned minimalist artist and critic Donald Judd in the 1970s, his large, lonesome art installations (among other artists’ work he brought in) transformed Marfa into an artist’s far-flung destination. That is, if one had the mettle to make it all the way out there and stay a little while. Since then, it’s precisely this remoteness that attracts the diverse and eclectic community of makers and creatives who’ve made their home in Marfa that we focused on this season to see life differently…more bodly…more clearly. A magic that inspires others in the knowledge that often, all you need is less in order to do more.
