Decision Time: Marfa, Texas
I am driving out of Abilene back onto 1-20 again. The gas stations are enormous here and construction on freeways is underway. Picnic area? Can you see the blue sign?
Michael Pulitzer wants to go to Marfa Texas 350 miles south out of our way. We have had a continuing debate over this, but now, here we are. This is the time to turn. We stop gas again. MP hops in the driver’s seat. His map app is set. He is determined that Marfa is the place to go now, on this trip. He is intrigued by the Donald Judd art installation. I love art, but I am not inclined to drive hundreds of miles to see “an art installation.” I want to stay on the high direct road to Tucson through Phoenix to LA on 1-20 and link our stops through the state and national parks. Carlsbad Caverns is one just 30 miles off the interstate. MP simply replies, “Marfa”. It won’t be another time without a poodle. It won’t include Big Bend National Park which we won’t see because it adds 3 days or 200 miles out of our way to the US/Mexico border.
MP books the Airstream-only campground from the info on my phone. This place only answers text messages, takes payment on “square” and will not speak to us. This is in stark contrast to the all-across-America chain of campgrounds. Someone is always quick to pick up the phone and call back with an answer. Then, MP books tickets for the art experience at The Studio and home of Donald Judd in Marfa. He suffers a few mis-hits: “The site doesn’t work” “It didn’t confirm” “I don’t know” I hear him saying. Do I do the same? Maybe. Automatic frustration!
To our delight, the drive to Marfa takes us through a beautiful state park and by a national monument. No time to stop. But I take a memo that this would be a great place to return to. Fort Davis State Park.
I sit to write from the prompt I’ve offered to the Stockbridge Library group today. How is your hair today? My hair was clean the night before last in Shreveport LA. It’s wonderful to wake up, rinse off, and get to the plan to make it a 365-mile-long day. This morning was another early call to chew up not our 5-hour prediction, but 6.5 for us after gas and pit stops and a little traffic. So, I am wearing a hat.
MARFA
The sun sets later at this side of the time zone – still Central. We have texted directions. It is called Marfa Texas Country Club Airstream Park. It is minimalist with plain awnings and cement platforms and not another soul here. Orange cones across the field mark future campsites they plan to add. There are big black dogs barking in a large metal box house. 5 airstream trailers are also on cement pads but they are empty hotel rooms for visitors to stay on this flat desert landscape of West Texas. We pull in #7 that we find back in the text we received. There are no real buildings here. Hookups – yes, bathrooms and showers – no. I am just furiously disappointed. Instead of making dinner, I sit in the chair provided without a table to enjoy an early glass of wine. I feel like a gringo caught in an LA trap at the end of the tourist maze. We have our own Airstream. This place is for folks to drive in and use the ones already here!
I make plans to pull out tomorrow, a day early. We can get back to Ft Davis State Park in rolling mountains after all our art dates. Click click. I make a telephone call. A woman picks up the phone. They are almost full, but we are reserved for tomorrow night! Hah. We get a lot of sleep. There is nothing to do.
Donald Judd’s home and studios: No Pictures Allowed!
The morning tour MP reserved is full. It includes 20 of us: several Californians, a couple of Europeans, obvious artists, a woodworker, a father and son, and us. This is more people than I’ve seen in days.
The Block House is where Judd lived. After getting started in New York, he lived here when he wasn’t installing his work all over the world. His two children went to elementary school in Marfa. He was divorced. His home is another studio space which means it is a place to hold objects with respect to what they are made of, their lines, and the balance, without encumbrances or unnecessary distractions. The work is not abstract, it is minimalist, with clean powerful lines in some specifically chosen metal, acrylic, bronze, wood cement, and on and on. There is nothing extra. But there is a lot of whatever Judd collects: enormous quantities of arrowheads, rocks, shells, and books -30,000 of them stored on thick wooden bookshelves that stretch up to the top of the ceiling. He designed his furniture or collected it. Each piece is done with precision No nails to be seen. He has heaps of hand-woven rugs to keep the walls warm in the smaller spaces meant for winter life.
He added buildings around the original structure that was on the train line. He crafted outdoor tables and chairs of block wood. A cement grill is a block with grates. The bathroom in a detached structure, is in sections with a spa bathtub and sauna. The kitchen is the heart of the story with stacks of pottery and enormous serving bowls, a butcher block kitchen counter top, and two beautiful tables for all the guests. Every dining room chair is unique and we are invited to finally sit down in one. Up a wide flight of stairs is a great expanse of a room for sleeping.
Judd was at his work all the time. There are beds in all sorts of places; his library, his “studio”. He could sleep where he wanted to be thinking. His productivity is exceptional. His genius never rested. His focus is apparent in every seam of each piece of material; wood, glass, metal, and acrylic.
And NO PIX allowed anywhere. Some visitors on the tour are catching quick clicks. But I, for once, follow the rules. The website features beauties you can see here: _https://juddfoundation.org_ The Judd Foundation in the town.
We don’t make it to see Chianti, named after the local mountains._https://chinati.org _ It is an extensive site for installing permanent collections. It offers residencies, hires artists, offers scholarships, and hosts public programs.
Check out the spaces! When in NYC, check out _101 Spring Street _where he lived before moving to Texas.
The next tour is after a nice lunch at “The Signal” a restaurant in former newspaper print house. The Studio spaces are also right in town. One is a converted bank building with a beautiful facade. Upstairs, Judd kept separate projects in each of the “offices” where bankers had worked. While each room is distinctive, there is a continuity and clean-lined repetition that recurs here as it does throughout his work and life. Judd also bought an abandoned grocery store where we find there extended tables curated with prints, notes, photographs, and other flat projects. He had a small house in town for guests which we explore.
Judd died young in the midst of his thriving career. A brief illness took him too soon. In 64 years, he had already established one foundation The Chinati to provide space for other curated artists. For example, John Chamberlain’s wrecked cars are a feature we see in another building in town. Most of Chianti is five miles away in a massive building project once an army base that Judd acquired. While he was well paid from all of his sales of his work, he spent his fortune here creating a living and breathing art in these spaces he curated for us to visit today. There was very little money left by the time he passed away.
I have to say we could only visit the work in the town. We were exhausted by his lean grand minimalism; his contradictions. They are fabulous, infectious, subtle, and beautiful. My mind was changed. I was glad I came. If you are ever invited to go to Marfa, put the town in your GPS. Just do it!
Tour done. I was all packed up to pull out of the Airstream campground for the 40-minute shuffle to the Fort Davis State Park which is 26 miles away. We find oak-filled woods, a warm welcome from the park rangers, and several other campers in tents, trailers, and RV’s. From here, I reflect on how much I appreciated how Judd crafted his life to do what he needed to do to get to the basic layers of his treatise. What does an object do in SPACE?
How lean, clean, and empty can it be?
Dawn at our campsite in Fort Davis State Park in West Texas.
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