Another Day in Marfa

Why is it that when we can’t think of anything to write or to talk about we default to weather?

This morning I watch the snow melt while eating an incredible bear claw from 6th Street Bakery in Alpine. This is only our second truly wintry day in Marfa since I arrived in September. Though the snow melts, the sky remains dark and grey – a perfect day for catching up on email, reading a big hefty book, prioritizing my Amazon wish list…and finally making a post to this blog which seemed a very good idea at the time and now feels like yet one more project I’ve taken on.

Word is the New York Times has published yet another article on Marfa, calling it the hippest of the hip art colonies, which of course makes me very nervous, as does the widening of the road between here and Alpine, harbingers of growth and the danger of theme-parking of yet one more small community where artists have chosen to settle. Yes, it would be nice to have a good grocery store and a place to get a quick oil change, but at the same time it is the remoteness of this place and its lack of infrastructure which give it the qualities which drew us here.

I am lucky because I do not rely on the local economy to make my living, having brought my business with me. But for those who do, and many of them friends, the media attention, the real estate boom of a couple years ago and the opening of new businesses are probably a good thing. We can only hope, however, that it does not presage the day when Marfa becomes the Marfa Ride. I’m probably over-reacting but having come here from Santa Fe I can’t help but be a little paranoid about Marfa becoming a ‘lifestyle.’