I heard about Marfa beings an arts destination for many years and was looking forward to visiting it. My husband Robert has become a very accomplished nature artist / photographer. West Texas promised to be filled with beautiful landscapes so I decided to give a Marfa/Big Bend trip to Rob for his 60 Birthday to photograph. We were planning to stay for three days in Marfa and three days in the lodge in Big Bend. We hired a guide for one day for Big Bend to show us around the park in a hope of finding favorite spots to visit on our own in the future. At the recommendation of a friend I booked the historic Hotel Paisano in Marfa and we embarked on our trip eager to explore West Texas!
Did you know where the suspiciously Russian name Marfa comes from for a town located in the heart of West Texas out of all places? Reportedly, the wife of a railroad executive Hanna Maria Strobridge suggested the name MARFA fittingly named after a character in a novel, from Feodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, which she was reading at the time. Marfa, the county seat of Presidio County, is at the junction of US Highway 90 and 67 in the northeastern part of the county. It was established in 1883 as a water stop and freight headquarters for the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway. What an unexpected surprise!
I like my blogs to have some kind of inspirational message, am guilty of being a motivation speaker, trying to help others to help myself, I guess. This blog could take many different directions like: converting military base into an art museum is they way to go! Make Art Not War! Or it could take a direction of a creative idea of an intellectual from the elite bubble of New York and economic consequences of it for Marfa. You ask what consequences? Well, because of this crazy Chinati Foundation started by Judd, Marfa became one of the most reputable art markets in the world. Hotels, restaurants, cool endeavors pop-up like mushrooms making this Marfa, still in the middle of nowhere, a desirable place to live.
YES! and WE, the members of the modern respectable society (as I see us) look at these clowns in disbelief and judgement. I felt offended! This is not art! This is some kind of tasteless mocking of what I believe in! How dare they! But… while climbing in the cold white couch in a company of a few other adventurists I found my motivational hook for this blog! Hallelujah!!! Here it is: these crazy artists, like it or not, brought interest, life and financial prosperity to the heart of very conservative West Texas. Ha,Ha,Ha! After all we are all connected, all staying in the same line between birth and death, copping with life the best we can, liberals and conservatives, somewhat sane and somewhat crazy!
Pictures by Robert Michaelson