The visit came after a kind of perfect storm of circumstances in my life led me to recognize just how isolated is this small town in the middle of the grass plains of West Texas, high on the Marfa Plateau, dry and dusty and more often than not wind-blown – and I’m talking real wind, not breeze.

The nearest town of any size is at least three hours away by car, and that being pretty much your only option as without a car (as I was) you need to somehow get to Alpine, 30 minutes to the East, get on Amtrak to El Paso, and then what? You’re stuck in El Paso which is not the greatest place to be stuck.

Now I am someone with a very high tolerance for solitude, but there have been a few times this recent year where solitude has tipped into loneliness. That’s when I got on the phone and started calling friends in San Francisco and Santa Fe just to get a reality check, remind myself that I was connected to the larger world outside Juddville. One of those friends had recently moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area from Portland. She had told me her story of her difficulty forming more than the most ephemeral of relations there. This is someone I have known for a very long time (she was my studio mate in my first studio in San Francisco) and whom I have always trusted for her insight. She has also visited me in Marfa a couple of times. Her comment about my feelings of isolation were that, hey, I had moved to a town that is not only very small but is peopled with an unusual number of introverts, which makes sense given the nature of the place. Marfa is also a town of eccentrics (I include myself as both an introvert and an eccentric) and the people you hang out with are the people whose eccentricities are similar to your own.

As with other places I have lived, San Francisco and Santa Fe, the locals can be fiercely loyal, so it is not without some trepidation that I write this post which might ruffle the feathers some card-carrying members in the Myth of Marfa Party.

That said, driving back from Santa Fe I was looking forward to returning to Marfa. There is an allure to the place not easily put into words, but these two articles by Sean Wilsey give a flavor of the place:

“The Republic of Marfa,” McSweeney’s 2, 1999

“Marfa Revisited,” McSweeney’s 6, 2000.

Although much has changed since these were written, much has also not changed.

My favorite part of the trip back from Santa Fe starts when you leave Carlsbad (or Anus Mundi), New Mexico, and head into the Guadalupe Mountains. Maybe some day the caverns will swallow up the town and the desert will take over. At least, that’s my fantasy.

After coming down out of the Guadalupes, you hang a left onto 54, a small two-lane road heading east to Van Horn which is magical, inspiring, gives your mind a rest, as you gaze off across the vast, empty landscape of yucca and mesquite. At Van Horn, you turn onto 90 for the long stretch into Marfa on another two-lane road, the only town between Van Horn and Marfa being Valentine, now practically a ghost town (although this is where our dentist now has her office). As you drive home to Marfa on these two roads it hits you just how isolated is Marfa. And there is both a kind of joy in that, and also a bit of anxiety, one part yearning for this home at the end of the world, the other part urging you to turn around and head back to where you came from.

But when I finally pulled up in front of my house, I was glad to be home. Back with my dog, and my books, and my painting. A place where nearly everyone waves as they pass by on foot or in their cars, as if in acknowledgment of “we’re all in this together.”

Marfa. It’s a good place to leave and it’s a good place to come back to.

Looking south towards my street. Photo by Martha Hughes (marthahughes.com) from her upcoming book "Non-Iconic Marfa"

What I Miss (Mostly Food)

• A deli
• A good sandwich, especially a decent Reuben
• An art supply store
• Fresh pastry and good bread
• Spontaneous gatherings of colleagues at the local artist bar
• Good, inexpensive restaurants
• Water and green
• Trader Joe’s
• A local pharmacy

PS: My love to the three muses of Marfa National Bank: Josie, Laura and Linda.

There’s this guy in town who puts his small dog in his white van every morning and evening and drives around town, the dog with his head out the window, ears flapping, and rhythmically yelping, sharp and piercing. Yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp… What the? Is this his idea of taking the dog for a walk?

I’ve made a lot of noise here in Marfa about moving on and even posted here about it. Always on a quest to find that mythical place ‘home’ and never finding it. And then one day on one of my evening walks with Zack, my dog, I got it. I am home, wherever I am, I am home. This may sound quite simplistic and yet for me it had the power of a major breakthrough.

And so, here I am, still in Marfa, but differently. For the time being I’m at peace here. Berlin still beckons me, and I will probably travel there soon, but relocate? Meanwhile…

Finding one’s place and putting down roots has much to recommend it. I have tried – in San Francisco, in Santa Fe, in Marfa – yet I am restless and sooner or later my restlessness uproots me like a tumbleweed. Then I look to the next horizon. I have set my sights on something other than this small, dusty burb, yearning for engagement with a larger vision. (Slowly I begin to understand that I carry home with me.)

Like Santa Fe and, before it, San Francisco, there is Marfa and there is the myth of Marfa created in part by the seemingly endless articles in the New York Times. Yes, Chinati is incredible. But incredible also are the greetings and genuine smiles of the three women tellers at Marfa National Bank, impromptu gatherings at the post office, listening to the stories of those for whom Marfa has been home for generations. Marfa was for me a retreat, ironically from the art world as it turned out. A place where I remembered that creating is process, not result and with that remembrance happily tucked into my pocket was able to enter the studio again after an almost three-year hiatus. I am glad Marfa was that place of retreat and reflection. I am now ready to move on.

I scratched Zackdog behind the ears in his favorite place and watched his eyes glaze over in bliss. The he went off to be by himself and do his own gazing, at late afternoon walkers, the neighbors going to the dumpster, a car driving by, ever watchful for the odd bunnie that might make itself visible and then freeze (as if that were some brilliant defense mechanism).

This is my idea of a good time and it’s when I fall in love with Marfa again. At times, something deep inside us guides us without our conscious awareness and we are compelled to act. We owe it to ourselves at these moments to listen deeply to ourselves and not the noise around us, or the well-intentioned advice of friends or colleagues or lovers. To be selfish.

Yes, on days like today Marfa is a piece of heaven. Don’t move here.

Idee Multicolr Search Lab Flickr Set

Thanks for turning me onto this, Canton.

Compared with last year’s open house, this weekend was blessedly not a circus: the puberty patrol was abated (no free Sonic Youth concert) nor did we see parasitic galleries sprouting in every available empty space to sell dubious wares.

Basically the weekend sorts itself into two crowds: the Judd aficionados and those who come to party. One camp doesn’t exclude the other.

The high points for me were seeing the luscious colors of Olle Baertling’s paintings at Chinati, the brilliant installation of Judd, Flavin, Chamberlin and Ruff at the inde/jacobs gallery still under construction (and I’m not saying that just because I happen to exhibit there), and the show at Waypoint with work by Leslie Wilkes, Ben Meisner and Charles Fresquez.

Hope to post some pix here soon from the weekend. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the peace and quiet.

As a word lover, I am naturally enthralled by the group names for birds. Many of these are noted in James Lipton’s book, An Exaltation of Larks. What is intriguing about the English language is how it evolves through usage, how malleable it is. Most of these group names can’t be found in the dictionary, but have been adopted through use by birders with sources as far back as 1440.

Here are some of my favorites:

• A building of rooks
• A charm of finches
• A company of parrots
• A cover of coots
• A deceit of lapwings
• A descent of woodpeckers
• An exaltation of larks
• A murmuration of starlings
• A murder of crows
• A parliament of owls
• A pitying of turtledoves
• A sord of mallards
• An unkindness of ravens

If you want more, check out the Baltimore Bird Club website, where I uncovered this list, and the handy table at Nutty Birdwatcher.

Background: Erika heard a lot of thunking under the floor of her house and a funny smell. At first, the thought was ‘mice,’ but there was much too much noise happening below decks for a creature that small. So Erika took position after nightfall outside her house and watched as, one by one, four baby javelina emerged from the crawlspace under her house.