Project 2

Marfa, Texas established in 1881 as a water stop for Texas and New Orleans Rail Road, now a trading point for many large ranches in surrounding mountains. Superb climate makes Marfa a popular tourest center. Marfa is approximately 156 miles northwest of BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK. Located 4,688 feet above sea level, Marfa is Texas' highest incorporated city. Supported mostly by ranching and most recently by tourism, Marfa combines the unspoiled beauty of a small town with all of the conveniences and luxuries of a big city. And the view just can't be beat. Surrounded by vast mountains and free from pollution, Marfa offers clear skies, temperate weather and the ideal atmosphere and environment for hiking, camping, golfing or wilderness exploration. The town was named after the wife of an important railroad owner with a focus on the town being a short visiting community. The vision of Marfa is distilled by the environment that was created in the 1930’s when the establishment of German concentration camps was enclosed in the now Chinati foundation. In the 1950’s a James Dean Movie named “Giant” was filmed in the small town; here the fame of the town was intensified and the establishment of tourism came to be greater. Though small in size, Marfa stands as a gateway to many exciting areas of West Texas and beyond. From the nearby border towns of Mexico to Big Bend National Park to the scenic drive through the Davis Mountains, Marfa offers a convenient and pleasurable start-off point. Beginning right in downtown Marfa, it's a two-hour drive or less to many points of interest: Ft. Davis National Historic Site, Davis Mountains State Park, McDonald Observatory, Pinto Canyon and many more.

Perhaps the most potent envisionment of environment in Marfa Texas is the classical stereotypical West Texas Façade type. This seems to be a prevalent influence within the town. The classical Texas town layout also gives a great amount of influence to the manner of the site. In this I mean that there is a central courthouse and several open exterior-shopping facilities on the peripheral of the courthouse. This gives the building a certain timid commercial value while still relating to traditional experience. The town seems like a golden city from the horizon through the mountain terrain; small and apparent yet large and important. There are also several axis’s that form the environment; this gives the courthouse a certain grandeur within the town There is one main street that lines the edge of the site and perpendicular to it there is a railroad that defines the essence of Marfa. Across the street from the site is part of Donald Judd’s Chianti Foundation with Smashed Car sculptures from John Chamberlain in it the interpretation of how one relates to the building may be symbolized more by the essence of symmetry, but this is up to the user.

The actual site is roughly 150-200 ft long by 40-60 ft wide; the importance of this information is that the size of the site indicates that the principle building may be more horizontal rather than vertical, the essence of this points out that the building may form a basic parallelism with the condensed peripheral of the area. The openness of the building may be a very controversial ideal, but the relationship to the street is a very important portion of town’s aesthetics. The site is used as a “park” at the town’s central core, but it is not a very common area for meeting unfortunately. The train tracks that expand through and past the site line a division between two worlds an edge between the two environments. The compression between the two environments would probably not be a great idea. Trees are very abundant on the edges of the site and within the site. I believe the trees on the edges of the site will form an indication of change of place, and should be left alone. The central trees may be regarded as extemporary, but I believe much of the vegetation should be discarded. The vegetation on the other plots of the corresponding sites is mostly cactus and shrub vegetation. The creatures of the town or outside of the town include rattlesnakes at times, Tarantulas, and a lot of grasshoppers. Although the snakes and Tarantulas are very rare the grasshoppers are all over the site that the Chianti Foundation lies on.

The Marfa Lights are a wonder in themselves; their not spectacular or marvelous they are just curious small lights in the distance where there is no man made object or man. It’s very obvious because the lights move and change colors and has been going on for the past 100 years; they have been witnessed as far back as 1870. There is no answer to that, but they are just mysterious and interpreted as magical, that is a definite tourist attraction within the town. The lights never come close they just stay distant. So why not just grab a handful of rocket scientists and go out and study them? Quite simply, no one can get near enough. Those who've tried leave frustrated, as the mystery lights disappear when approached. . Marfa County Judge Charlie Johnson said in 1984, "People who don't want to believe in the lights figure out that they're car lights in the distance." Could this luminous moving ebbing and flowing actually be the glow cast from the headlights of Dean's long ago lost death car? Again in the 1980's, longtime Marfa resident Samuel Whatley was driving home right before dawn when he spied what he assumed were car lights speeding towards him. Suddenly, outside his pickup's window, a cantaloupe-sized globe of orange-red light appeared and hovered. Whatley pushed his accelerator to the floor, but the globe followed him for two miles before vanishing without a trace. Perhaps the evil web of Dean's Spyder has grown since his death to encompass such manifestations as this peculiar phenomenon in Marfa, Texas. I guess it will stay a mystery. In life sometimes the unexplained should remain unexplained in order for the world to enjoy the mystery that it entails.

Judd, Donald (1928-1994), American sculptor, known for his minimalist (simple in form) works, typically made of metal. His interest in empiricism, a philosophy that asserts that all knowledge is based on experience alone, can be seen in his sculptures. He has written several articles about art, including "Specific Objects" (1965), which discusses the theoretical basis of his work.

Born in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, Judd earned degrees in philosophy and art history from Columbia University. He began painting in the early 1950s, and in the 1960s he began creating sculptures. Along with a group of artists interested in the principles of empiricism, Judd began making art that did not create any illusion or symbolize anything outside itself, such as the psychological or emotional state of the artist. The work of Judd and his fellow minimalists—or empiricists, as Judd preferred—was also in part a reaction against the abstract expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s, which sought to represent spontaneity and the individuality of the artist (see Abstract Expressionism).[1]

Judd worked in a variety of materials, including steel, plywood, Plexiglas, and aluminum and other polished metals. He sometimes spray-painted surfaces, using motorcycle enamel to give his sculptures a bright, glossy finish that accentuated their clear form. Since he was not interested in connecting his art to himself as an individual artist, he, like other minimalists, began designing his works and having them made by skilled craftspeople. These works were frequently composed of repeated objects, usually simple, geometric forms. In Untitled (1968, Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin), for example, six identical box shapes of stainless steel and amber-colored Plexiglas are cantilevered from the wall at regular intervals. The work is precisely constructed and lacks any sign of the artist's individual personality. In 1979 Judd established an art foundation and began showing his own work and that of others in a complex of buildings that he designed in Marfa, Texas.[2]

Donald Judd went from sculpture to architecture in the 1970’s with the Renovation of several facilities in New York City and in Marfa, Texas . The symbolance of minimalism within Judd’s work and it imples that the town becomes minimilist in a sense.

Over all Marfa, Texas is a rather enjoyable town to visit; as for living there I sometimes wonder what exactly would there be to advance the town. I do know that the town is very charming and inspirational against some of the other placid towns of West Texas. Both the gallery that the Savannah College of Art and Design and the Studio/Learning Facility that the Texas Tech University Students are proposing will be a very intricate development within the town that would make a very definite impact on the town if it would be built.

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