From time to time I get out of Minneapolis in order to miss Minneapolis and love it even more. I moved here three years ago from the Chihuahua desert, since I fell in love with the Twin Cities seven years ago after enjoying plenty of shows at First Avenue, a strange opportunity to find where I come from.
We all agree this last winter was hard, now adding to my case a deep heartache, I needed to hang out in a dry place, a very dry place. A promise of a trip with my always partner in fun, Homero led us to one of the most amazing placed I’ve ever been to: Marfa, Tx. Which is known as a cultural center for contemporary artists and artisans.
We started driving from Chihuahua City, and had a delightfully chillplaylist that lasted for hours, just perfect for the desert landscape. The shape of clouds was something I never had appreciated before.
Marfa is practically in the middle of nowhere, but geographically is located in West Texas, between the Big Bend National Park and the David Mountains. Before getting there we crossed an official ghost town called Shafter… Marfa could’ve ended like that, but it was rescued by art.
I highly recommend you all the places Homero and I visited. If you go and find any other treasure, please let me know, I’d be delighted to hear about it.
We stayed at El Cosmico which is a hotel/campground where its accommodations include renovated vintage trailers, tepees and safari tents with communal spaces: outdoor kitchen and a dining area, hammocks and a stage. Also you can enjoy the outdoor showers to enjoy the view as you shampoo. Unfortunately, due that there was a burn ban, being the middle of the summer, we couldn’t rent the wood-fired hot tub, but ask in advance for them, hopefully you’ll be one of the lucky ones to enjoy and tell me about it! What we did rent though were bikes (with baskets to place our music gadgets: iPad+speakers), and oh boy, it’s the right way to get around Marfa to discover every little corner and mostly if you want to photograph every detail just like me! And because the day had been rainy the first day we arrived, which is a miracle we encountered, we wore some fancy ropes from our Vagabond trailer while hanging out in our porch listening to Röyksopp.
*Check how the Vagabond trailer looks like, click here.
By far, this is the best place I’ve ever stayed regarding accommodations, no wonder it’s one of the top 10 quirkiest hotels in the US.
El Cosmico offers to everyone little escape from the daily routine… a little treat of il dolce far niente. Thanks to this place I’ve now become a follower of the Mañanifiesto, which is a great piece of advice for a control freak like me: "The key to Mañana lies somewhere in the unspecified future. It holds the great promise of hope".
As mentioned earlier, Marfa could’ve been a ghost town if it hadn’t been ‘rescued’ by Donald Judd in the 70s when he moved from NYC and having fallen in love with that light and space, he decided to implement spaces of permanent installation, going against the ‘museum experience’ of short term exhibitions. One of his biggest accomplishments is the Chinati Foundation, where we headed to a guided exhibition that helped us comprehend a little bit more about Judd’s 100 Untitled Works in Mill Aluminium and Dan Flavin’s untitled project for Marfa. I had been waiting almost one decade to see one of Flavin’s pieces, and they are indeed amazing. Nothing compares to the experience of seeing the way light is put up Flavin’s style.
The tour is divided into several rooms separated from one another over the Fort D.A. Russell, and over the landscape you can appreciate the 15 Untitled Works in Concrete, which is open to the public. To finalize the tour we had to drive to the Marfa Wool and Mohair Building in Marfa downtown to view Chamberlain’s various works. Here you MUST get on the giant sofa and chill while watching a psychedelic film.
Chinati Foundation was pretty cool. Lately I had lost appreciation for minimalist art, but oh boy this experience has reminded me to put essence on the pedestal… I’m thinking about now selling 60% of what I own (more info later).
Afterwards we were lucky enough that theFood Shark truck was open! I couldn’t believe that Adam Bork himself was there asking me for my order! I was shaking when I ordered a marfalafel with hummus. You can try anything they’re offering, just check out their TripAdvisor’s Certificate of Excellence 2013.
We headed then to Adam Bork’s other business calledFuture Shark, which is day lounge where we decided to chill outside with a couple of beers, played our music and few people, since there are not very many, asked us where we were from. This questions kept on through the day… I felt cool among the New York and Austin kids doing their summer internships among the various art galleries.
Having a little buzz, riding our bikes (I shouldn’t even write that down), we rode around the town and decided to take pictures of all the places around: The Get Go Store (which we couldn’t afford, most likely only Beyoncé and Solange when they came here last year), Ballroom Marfa, Cobra Rock Boot Company, Marfa Contemporary and Marfa Public Radio, where we were invited in, to get to know their installations.
Of course I tried to imagine that Beyoncé and I are connected through the joy of touring through Marfa and sucking a little bit of its soul through camera lenses. Sometimes I’m as cheap as that: a pleasure, yes, any guilt, no.
At night we decided to go dine at Padre’s, where as soon as we arrived to the patio we heard some shouting “hey, you’re the guys from the bikes”, and you know me, I right away sat with them and started conversation. We met one really nice lady and an amazing American/Spanish/German/Hollander gentleman who told us about his bike adventures with Minneapolis mayor RT Rybak. Small world, figure!
The next day, I had to catch a plane from El Paso, Tx. On our way out from Marfa, on US 90 Valentine, Tx we were able to admire Prada Marfa and Playboy Marfa… all I can say is that I did laugh at these beautiful jokes, or at least to the joke of impossibility of shopping nor posing for them. But Marfa does make the joke very real. And I needed this trip more that ever, I needed to laugh smartly and stupidly at the same time, I needed my friend Homero to drink and dance with me, to practice the parties that are yet to come; therefore for me Baby, this desert… was dessert.