Me and my Cousin Olivia when we arrived in Marfa, Texas.
MARFA, TX. october 2016.
Over the years I have been to many beautiful and amazing places. I have been to beaches, and mountains, big cities and small towns. But nothing compares to this lovely little gem I found out in Texas. Being a hub for art, culture and music, Marfa is unlike anything I've ever seen before.
Marfa is a small, desert town about 6 hours from San Antonio. Easily forgotten about by the huge world we live in. It is covered in beautiful Texas Landscaping, and it is a hub for artist, designers, and architects who showcase their amazing skills by building or displaying out in West Texas. Marfa is also home to the Donald Judd foundation, and holds countless events for arts and culture. There is also a phenomenon known as "The Marfa Lights" which is said to be floating orbs of light seen in the night sky. Deff aliens. Or the illuminati (I hear Beyoncé visits Marfa sometimes)
Just a picture I snapped when we finally made it into the city of Marfa.
TEEPEES & TENTS.
Originally when I discovered the city online, I discovered that there was a city in Texas that you could rent out a TeePee for the night, which, to me, sounded super cool. I immediately knew I had to check it out. I mean who doesn't want to sleep in a teepee in the desert? Plus they have showers and outdoors kitchens, community hammocks, hot-tubs, and so much more. The place is called El Cosmico, and the more I researched the more I realized there was way more than teepees in the desert. They also have vintage airstream trailers you can stay in, painted in bright colors and redocrated to look like a beautiful desert getaway.
But the struggle with all of this is Time, Money, and who to take with me.
Taken outside the lobby at El Cosmico.
SENIORITIS.
A couple months went by freshly moving to Texas and I was still trying to figure out who would come to Marfa with me. I had asked the small group of friends I had made, but being adults is very conflicting. There is so much going on, it's so hard to get everyone in the same schedule. However, I love dragging family with me places AND it just so happened that my cousins were coming into town to get me to take some senior pictures for my cousin Olivia. Getting this child to do anything is literally like pulling teeth (teenager, diva, etc) but with a little convincing I persuaded her that we could take some BOMB pics out in the Texas desert. They were also coming in early October and the weather in Marfa was supposed to be perfect at the time. It is, after all, a desert. So the days are relatively warm and the nights can get really cold.
Shoutout to Dad for coming through with this tent we had from years ago when i was in boyscouts.
YOUNG, DUMB, & Broke.
So, a common theme in my life is me not having money to do the crazy things that I want to do. While it isn't very much to stay at El Cosmico, I still couldn't muster up the extra funds that I would need to enjoy a weekend out there. So I kept reading the website, and eventually I realized that you can self camp out there in the grounds. HELL YES. I don't need a fancy, beautiful teepee, I can pitch that tent I have in the back of my closet and just look at all the teepees and trailers. After all, life is short, and how much time am I really going to spend in the hotel/teepee?
PLUS, Louisiana had recently flooded and we got these cool cots that they were giving out for people to sleep on when they lost there houses. We decided to just stay one night, which I eventually found out wasn't enough time at all. But we only had so much time with visiting fam and I didn't want to take Olivia for the WHOLE weekend.
MAKING IT TO MARFA.
We decided to leave early on a Saturday morning to get there around 2 and still have time to do things. It really was a good idea, and the drive was one of the most beautiful drives I've ever taken. It went from City to Desert landscaping, to huge mountains. The further southwest you go into Texas the more breathtaking it becomes. You pass mountains, old towns, colleges, and a wind energy field that have these huge turbines that look so majestic out in the land.
While the drive was so beautiful we decided it would be a good idea to stop and take some photos, I mean why not? I love being spontaneous with photography and Olivia HAD to have her train track senior photos. So we stopped and shot some cool photos on this abandoned train.
Just casually leaning on this train.
BUT nothing could compare to arriving at El Cosmico. It was like driving up to a cute little compound, cut off from the world. There was a sense of relaxation and so many beautiful sights. Every spot around the hotel seemed to be a photo spot. So with the itch to take more photos we threw our tent up and Olivia got ready in the car.
The Entrance to El Cosmico.
Immediately we were finding place after place to shoot photos. We knew we had to go to the Prada installation but we couldn't even get out of the hotel. We were shooting at the lobby, at Marfa Contemporary, and all around the beautiful city. We were just constantly running into beautiful places and if I could go back I would actually get to enjoy these places. I didn't even get to go into any of the art galleries, and we also didn't have time to make it to the Donald Judd foundation.
But eventually we made it out to the Prada installation. Which, I'm going to be completely honest here....nobody mentioned it wasn't OPEN. And I guess I'm dumb to think it was like...an actual store....but I mean, I didn't expect it to be this little sad building. It was covered in mud, things were vandalized and broken. AND it was 30 minutes out of Marfa, it wasn't close at all. Was it cute? Yes. Am I glad I got to see it? Yes, it was a huge splash in the world of commercial art when it was installed, and it still is a landmark for the Prada brand. Would I ever go again? No.
Regardless we got some amazingly interesting and cool photos at this spot, and we even turned away from the store to eat some of he mountains in the background. These are some of my favorite photos I have ever taken. As a photographer I couldn't stop finding so much beauty in the landscape and the natural essence that this place had. Words aren't gold enough to describe the complete AWE, that you feel when you arrive to such a place.
THE NIGHT, THE MORNING, THE MISSED OPPORTUNITIES.
Once night fell there wasn't really much else to do besides go take a moment to breathe. We had been running around like chickens with our heads cut off all day and I needed to stop and see if we got all the photos we needed. So we went back to the campsite and got ready to go eat. This was a conflict. I had failed to do my research on where food was being served. We started at the Thunderbird, which was so beautiful the atmosphere was almost ethereal, beautiful bartenders serving beautiful cocktails as the sun set on the industrial style patio. But there was no food at the time. I don't know if it was a special night or if we missed something but the bartender informed me no food was being served. So we headed out to the city and found this little gem, Stellina. It was the cutest little restaurant and there were people from all walks of life inside. We had the most delicious meal ever as well.
After we were full and the hanger had gone away we settled back into our campsite. We laid in the hammocks and charged our phones (roughing it, i know) and on if the funniest things was when this guy started playing his ukele, me and Olivia had been so relaxed we didn't even hear him walk up so we thought we were losing our minds with these sweet little guitar sounds started coming from the desert air. ALSO I must mention it got orettt darn cold. Luckily I brought sweats. AND while his rando was serenading us with his ukele skills our tent-neighbors puppy came play with us. He was he cutest.
After a couple hours of chatting and catching up, we eventually hit he hay. The cots covered the tent from wall to wall and we ended up laughing our asses off, probably waking the whole site. But it was the end of a really fun, and amazing experience with my cousin who I hardly ever get to see.
The next morning we immediately got up, did some shopping in the gift store at the hotel (note to self: save more money to buy cool things) flirted with a cute group of bachelor party dudes, and made our way back to San Antonio. Leaving was actually hard, as I had been so relaxed in that part of the world. Marfa does something to you, it's almost eerie how calm you feel when you're there. Maybe it's the landscape, or the people, or the weather, or aliens. Regardless, I think about it a lot and I genuinely miss the feeling.
Next time I go though, I will have way more planned. First I want to take a trip to Big Bend National park about 2 hours away, then I want to hit he Donald Judd Foundation, and I also want to experience the Marfa lights at the start party. I would mention as well that the stars out there are life changing but it was cloudy the night we stayed and didn't get to see much. Regardless, I had Ana amazing time and I apologize if information is missing this was about 8 months ago at this point but I wanted to document it in hopes that one day I can look back to realize how much I've learned about the city since the first interesting little introduction to the city of Marfa.