Marfa, Texas

Marfa Texas is located 26 miles away from Alpine. Wesley and I took a drive out there our third day. It's about one-half the size of Alpine and you can just about see the entire city on foot in under 15 minutes. Yes, it's tiny. However, it's also expensive if you want to live there. It's as though all of the retried rich white artsy Austinits decided to pick up and move to the middle of nowhere. And while they were at it they kicked out the Hispanics (pop. of 8% compared to Alpine's 50%), built new houses, and made themselves all new art galleries. You get a feel for this as every house here looks as though the paint is still wet, and all the shops consists of either hanging paintings or fancy coffee table books. Plus, all of this arty type stuff is conducive to Marfa's two huge yearly events: The Film Festival and the Art Festival. I hope you're getting at the fact that this is one "Artsy Fartsy" town, as Wesley put it. I happened to like the small area a lot, Wesley was often rolling his eyes.
We approached an art gallery, of course, with the name "Andy Warhol's Last Supper." Wesley was definitely not into the whole "art thing," but we did end up learning a lot about how the painting were created and a lot about Warhol himself, who supposedly spent a lot of time devoted to the Catholic church, although very secretively. I doubt myself that he was very religious, though, because he vowed to make a promise to God to spend more time at church if he were to survive a gunshot wound. He did survive and he did keep his promise, but most of his time at church was spent in the soup kitchen or in the back row pew. Three of his paintings of the Last Supper were depicted in this particular art gallery. He is famous for bringing two seemingly opposite material together to make a new material. For instance, he used a photograph of the famous Lenoardo Da Vinci's Last Supper and, via a silk screen, layered it with camouflage. Here are the pieces of these art work:




Next on our list of things to do in Marfa was to check out the Paisano Hotel. (http://www.hotelpaisano.com/) This hotel is absolutely gorgeous and is famous for James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson's stay there during their filming of the epic movie "Giant" in 1955. Wes and I figured it would be the perfect place for our mother and their sisters (our aunts) to stay during their visit to West Texas, so we sent my Mom the hotel's official post card. We figured she would be the most excited about it, seeing she's an artist and all. Here is a picture of Paisano Hotel:



Last on our list was Marfa's Mystery Lights. We actually didn't stick around to see them, but supposedly strange lights, just about 9 miles away from Marfa, appear close to the ground every clear night. There is a observatory to view these lights and the local electrician of Alpine, if you recall Moon Dog, told us that "it takes about an 18 pack to see them." No one knows what the lights are and no body has been able to figure out what causes them. According to two ladies at Marfa's Chamber of Commerce, a team of Japanese scientists set up camp a few weeks ago to try to figure out what the lights were but went home empty handed. You can read more about these mystery lights here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfa_lights

Oh, and of course, Your Moment of Zen:
Whilst on the drive to Marfa:
Wesley: "You see Sheila, Alpine is a place where everyone knows each other, Marfa is a place where everyone has slept with each other."