Marfa Dot Net

MARFA – Marfa Open 17 is a alternative art/performance festival from 22 September to 8 October.  This is the second year of the festival which hosts photography, performance, mixed-media installation, and interactive events open to all.

Local, national, and international artists will rendezvous in Marfa to pursue and provide collective creativity for public consumption.

The Opening Ritual is to be held October 1 at Tacheles Marfa, the main headquarters and gallery space, beginning at dusk (behind the DQ).
The photography portion of events will begin prior to that at the Blackwell School and the Crowley Theater leading up to the main week of installation and performance. All scheduled events will be promoted by flyers throughout Marfa, Alpine, and Ft Davis; posted on social media; and available through the website (www.marfaopen.com).

Apart from the major evening events, there are several free and fun activities throughout the week: a painting ashram at Tacheles Marfa, a guided meditation series involving sound frequency and color therapy, and whatever else may come to mind.

The festival concludes with a Closing Ritual at Padre’s on Saturday, October beginning later in the evening, being a formal end to what is planned to be an inspiring time in space.
The Artists:
Museum of Human Achievement, Austin
Multi-disciplinary arts collective. MOHA will present their non-visual art show in collaboration with other local artists during Marfa Open. They will present SPAMZ, a virtual reality dining experience. The focus of their installation is centered around the use of the human senses with technological feedback.
Magisterial, Portland, OR
Sonic duo, Matt Henderson and Chris Spencer. Magisterial uses analog synthesizers to weave multi-layered sonic tapestries. In addition to their performances, they will DJ and collaborate with other artists for pop-up events throughout the week.
Monika Rostvold, Brooklyn
Performance artist. Monika uses her body as the medium.  She focuses the conversation around voyeur and broadcast-sexuality. For her performance piece at Marfa Open, Monika will incorporate ritual and narrative from her real-life experiences.
Taj Bourgeois, Portland, OR
Trans-literal performance artist.
Travis Blue, Marfa
Experimental filmmaker and multi disciplinary artist.
Linn Phyllis Seeger, Köln
Linn correlates human and landscape, finding geographical utopias. The feeling of delocalization and deficiency of places, and the impact of memory on the perception of places

are reoccurring motifs in her work. Neon Egos is an installation of portraits and urban landscapes photographed in fluorescent light, exploring the way furtive encounters and transient places become future memories. Two zines will be shown resulting from a Marfa artist residency in April 2017.
Caleb Jagger, Ft Davis
Caleb Jagger has been taking grand portraits of field workers all along the American South. Many of our fruits and vegetables are still harvested by hand.  Hand harvesting is essential because most fruits and vegetables are harvested multiple times in a season which requires the plant not to be damaged in the process, or the crop needs to be cut, trimmed, dressed, and packaged in the field.  Machines may never be able to perform these tasks, thus human hands are the only tool that can bring much of our food to our table.
Zachary Morriss, Lubbock
Zachary Morriss’ art combines his personal history and active engagement with surroundings. He combines decoration and electronics to show that patterns and systems can be metaphor for self-construction. He seeks out places where light can reveal patterns and repetitive simulations. Objects are personified to show how our lives connect to the bright and vivid landscape of our lived experiences.
Martin Lamberty, Köln
Photographer Martin Lamberty’s work, Dream for Sale, tells the story of Salton Sea, the largest California lake, initially settled in the 1950s to live the dream of perpetual vacation.  Due to devastating climatic change, the lush landscape became an arid desert.  The remaining inhabitants live in a place doomed by aspirations, profit, and the effects of nature – which ironically mirrors the circumstances of the first settlers in the American West.  The Salton Sea hold-outs do not fight the barren wilderness and leftovers of civilization.  They tweaked their American Dream with persistence, independence, and freedom.

Christine Olejniczak, Marfa, is awesome and has been for a long time.  Drawing/Sound composition and performance.
Stephen Krupnick, Laguna Beach
California-based photographer Stephen Krupnick captures the intimacy of life and landscapes in his travels.
Between November 2017 and March 2018, Marfa Open Art Festival will travel to Saigon (HCMC), Vietnam and to Chiang Mai, Thailand, inviting several local Marfa-based artists to participate in an international art project responding to the significance, esthetics, and power of water.

Marfa will also host water-art projects in March. Proposals from local artists are requested for specifically water-related works.  Marfa Open Art Festival plans to also bring local artists and artworks to Zürich and Guadalajara soon, very soon.

Contact:  Seph Itz, 432-249-1147

TERLINGUA – Everyone has talent and some talents are the kind that others want to see and hear. If that’s you, take note: Last Minute Low Budget Productions is holding a talent contest on October 5 at the troupe’s Cinnabar Theater.

The contest is open to everyone of every age and there will be cash prizes for the winners. And the judges? That will be the audience, so hone your skills, put the band back together, tune your singing saw, whatever.

The performances begin (we hope) at 7:30pm.

To enter contact scott@lmlbterlingua.org or 512-774-7812.

Last Minute Low Budget Productions is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) community theater group that began putting on plays in the Terlingua area in 1989. All tax-exempt donations are much appreciated.

(photo by and courtesy of ADAM BORK)
Adam Bork’s Food Shark fleet is seen from a crane at the first MVAA Car Show in 2013.

By JOHN DANIEL GARCIA

johndaniel@bigbendnow.com

MARFA – The Marfa Vintage Vehicle Association Car Show returns after a three-year hiatus, giving area residents a chance to show off their classic rides at the Presidio County Courthouse.

The show, which kicks off at noon on Saturday, is meant to showcase any old vehicle, with no restrictions on condition.

“I like broken-down old stuff, and like the idea of people towing things to the show,” laughed the show’s organizer, David Branch. “I think it’s cool that people in town collect weird, old cars from the seventies. We’re just trying to encourage people to bring their cars. It doesn’t matter if it’s restored or beat up. If there’s a reason you wanted to buy it, there’s a reason to show it off. There’s just something about driving a car that’s 40, 50, 60 years that’s cool.”

This year’s show marks the first event that will not be held at El Cosmico, with Branch saying his decision to move the event was to encourage more participation.

“There’s something cool about the show being in the middle of town. I think our group of friends will come out wherever the show’s at, which is cool and all, but I like the idea that people who wouldn’t generally come out could see it going on downtown and ride their bike or drive by and check it out,” he explained.

The car show has already attracted the usual gang of gearheads, such as Adam Bork, David Beebe, and Eugene Binder, who have always had a presence at the show.

Still, Branch is hoping to get lesser-known vehicles to the courthouse.

“I see all of these really cool old cars in peoples’ driveways and carports, and I hope that these people will bring them out,” he said. “I haven’t had the time to go around knocking on doors, but hopefully they’ll see it’s going on and drive on down.”

The origins of the show, he added, began as an act of civil disobedience as the loose association’s early members were stopped multiple times by local law enforcement while driving cars with antique license plates.

“We were annoyed that we kept getting stopped and ticketed for driving the cars. We jokingly talked about putting together a car club to avoid getting tickets for our antique plates and it just kind of fell in place,” he said. “So far the show’s been the only car club activity for a car club that doesn’t really exist.”

The event, Branch added, is free to the public and encourages attendees to bring food and drink for the event.

“It’s all free, but you don’t get anything for your money,” he joked. “We’re encouraging people to bring their grills and coolers and do a little tailgating during the show.”

Though a vehicle is not technically considered an antique in car circles, Branch said, it doesn’t matter if your car was made at a later date.

“We’re not gonna split hairs if you think you’ve got a classic in the making,” he said.

Johnny Stallings

MARFA – Marfa Live Arts presents actor Johnny Stallings to perform Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself at 7pm on Friday, September 22.

The performance which takes place on the Autumnal Equinox will be held on the lawn of the Presidio County Courthouse in Marfa. In case of rain, the event will be at Hotel St George Farm Stand covering. Picnics are welcome.

Stallings will teach a workshop focusing on Song of Myself at 10:30am on Saturday, September 23, at the USO Marfa Visitor’s Center. The workshop will encourage participants to discuss Song of Myself and its cultural/personal significance.

“Song of Myself is unlike any other poem. Period. Including other Whitman poems. It’s an American gospel. It’s not just a poem – it’s one of the world’s spiritual classics and it has tremendous power to widen a person’s vison and deepen it. It’s one of the best accounts in any language of what the mystical experience is, from a first person’s account,” said Stallings.

Stallings continues, “I’ve never been to Marfa and so coming is very exciting. I look forward to connecting with the people there. Performing Song of Myself connects you to the audience in a way that not all things do. It’s written in a way that is directed to the reader or listener.”

When asked what can audience members expect who may not be intimately familiar with Whitman’s work, he replies, “To be amazed. To have their minds blown. It’s an astonishing thing. It works on you. At the end of the poem you will feel different than when it started. You’ll be larger. You may not even have a boundary.”

Both events are free and open to the community. For more information go to: www.marfalivearts.org.

(staff photo by SARAH M. VASQUEZ)
Molly Ferguson, center, smiles during a gig with Mariachi Santa Cruz at El Cosmico.

By SARAH M. VASQUEZ

PRESIDIO – Molly Ferguson was about to go to sleep when she got news. She had made the finals for the 2017 Tejano Idol singing competition in Austin.

“I was stoked and excited,” said Ferguson.

The Austin Tejano Music Coalition created Tejano Idol in 2010 as a response to American Idol, the long-running singing competition that launched the careers of Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson and Adam Lambert. The idea is to spotlight new Tejano artists and spread the genre to new listeners.

The Presidio High School graduate will represent Far West Texas among finalists from all over the state, including Austin, San Antonio, Corpus Christi and McAllen, on October 1 at H&H Ballroom in Austin. The event starts at 2pm.

At first Ferguson was skeptical to throw her name in the ring, but she decided to take a leap of faith after Presidio High School art teacher Laurie Holman encouraged her to audition. She asked her roommate Dafne Rodriguez to film her audition video. In front of a blue and white Mexican serape, the Sul Ross State University student strummed a guitar while she sang “Amor Eterno,” by Juan Gabriel. She submitted the video and the final decision was announced a few days later.

The idea of a singing competition has been an intimidating world for Ferguson. It wasn’t until recently that she thought maybe she has a shot to make something with her music. With her parents, John and Lucy Ferguson, both musicians in The Resonators and Mariachi Santa Cruz, music has always been a part of her life. Lucy is currently the band director at Presidio High School and Presidio Mayor John Ferguson previously taught music.

It wasn’t until she was 14 years old when her father encouraged her to sing the late Selena’s “Baila Esta Cumbia” for The Resonators. She was hesitant.

“I had tried to sing with a rock band in Ojinaga and I never felt comfortable with it,” said Ferguson. “I wasn’t comfortable with myself.”

She received compliments after she sang for The Resonators though. Her confidence grew as she sang with her mom at church. Ferguson frequently joins her parents and her younger brother, Max, who is an electronic musician, on stage for The Resonators and Mariachi Santa Cruz.

“I still consider myself a singer in training,” said Ferguson. “I only recently started taking some voice lessons here at school, and I’m seeing how that improves my voice.”

What she wants to gain from this competition is to learn more about Tejano music. Ferguson was selected to perform “El Golpe Traidor” by Culturas for the finale with a live band performing with her.

“I hadn’t heard (the song) before, but actually listening to it, I’m ready,” said Ferguson. “I know what I’m going to wear and how I’m going to interact with people. I’m going to try to do my best.”

Out of the 16 finalists, it’s hard to overlook that Ferguson is the only one without a Hispanic surname. The community and the culture from being raised on the Presidio/Ojinaga border for all of her life is what she knows.

“For me, I’m really in love with what Mexico has to offer,” said Ferguson.

Since the news spread that she is competing in Tejano Idol, Ferguson has received encouraging and praising comments from Far West Texas residents. It shows her how gracious everyone is and how this competition is putting Presidio on the map.

“I feel everybody’s hope,” said Ferguson. “It’s an incredible feeling.”

For more information about Tejano Idol, visit atmc-tejanoidol.com.

On the Presidio County Courthouse lawn

MARFA – Marfa Live Arts hosts Johnny Stallings, founding member of the Portland Shakespeare Company and founding director of Open Hearts Open Minds, to perform Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself on the Autumnal Equinox, Friday, September 22 at the Presidio County Courthouse lawn in Marfa.

On Saturday, September 23, Stallings will teach a community workshop focused on Whitman at the USO Marfa Visitor Center. Both events are free and open to the public.

Stallings a theater director, writer and actor has performed countless Shakespeare roles including adapting both Hamlet and King Lear into one-man shows. As director of Open Hearts Open Minds he works within Washington and Oregon state prisons to nurture transformation through dialogue, silence, education and the arts.

Stallings believes Walt Whitman’s role as one of the most eminent American poets is undeniable. He calls Whitman “the poet of American democracy,” and Stallings believes that Whitman’s view of our culture as one of equals is being lost in an atmosphere of eroding individual rights, bought elections and a rapid shift of wealth to a tiny elite. “One can feel in the air democracy deteriorating around us,” he says.

Whitman’s vision of national strength, Stallings offers, is in “this mystical statement that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights. There have been different threads in the American tapestry,” Stallings says. “There’s been a struggle for this spirit of openness. It has been at war with an elitist tendency, and also with a thread of intolerance… There has always been this sneaky plutocratic thing going on behind the scenes. You can still call yourself a democracy long after it’s gone away.”

And so for almost forty years Stallings has been returning to Song of Myself, a poem he calls “a kind of wisdom text, like the I Ching or New Testament. Shakespeare’s like that too.” Stallings concludes by saying, “Whitman changed us. His poems nourish everyone’s humanity.” For more information see: www.marfalivearts.org.

MARFA, PRESIDIO COUNTY – The Judd Foundation is pleased to announce the fourth annual Casa Perez Ranch Day, an occasion to visit one of Donald Judd’s ranches outside of Marfa on Sunday, September 10 from 11am-4pm.

The Foundation will host an afternoon of food and drink, music, and talks on land stewardship. Free and open to the public.

“We believe that without the wide open spaces and free-roaming wildlife of this area, Judd would not have come here and that Judd Foundation would not exist in Marfa,” notes Rainer Judd, Co-President. “We understand that the continued stewardship of this land is critical to our future. At Ranch Day, we’re excited to recognize individuals and landowners that contribute their knowledge, resources and hands-on support to the continued bio-diversity of the Chihuahuan Desert.”

In 1982, Judd purchased Casa Perez, located directly off of Pinto Canyon Road about 45 miles south of Marfa in Presidio County. An adobe structure built in the early 1900s, it was formerly the main house of a goat ranch. The Perez family, after whom Judd named the house, had operated the ranch in the late 1940s. Judd referred to his three ranch properties just beyond the Chinati Mountains collectively as Ayala de Chinati, with the Basque word “Ayala” translates as a region where slope and meadow meet.

Casa Perez Ranch Day will include food from Fat Lyle’s from 11:30am-1pm (first come, first served); talks by Louis Harveson, Borderlands Research Institute, and Deirdre Hisler, The Nature Conservancy, at 1pm; and a hike with Randy Sanchez, Judd Foundation, at 3pm. Music by Primo Carrasco and David Beebe will be performed throughout the day.

More information on the Casa Perez Ranch Day: marfa@juddfoundation.org or 432-729-4406 ext. 1.

This program has been made possible through the generous support of The Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston, and a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.

Judd Foundation is a tax exempt 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization created to preserve the permanently installed living and working spaces of Donald Judd in New York and Marfa, Texas. The Foundation promotes a wider understanding of Judd’s artistic legacy by providing access to these spaces and resources and by developing scholarly and educational programs.

MARFA – The In Front of Us film series rescheduled the screening of “Whose Streets?” to 7:30pm, Tuesday, September 12 at the Crowley Theater

The documentary, directed by Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis, is about the killing of Michael Brown and the Ferguson uprising that premiered in competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

Due to technical difficulties, the August 31 screening had to stop 30 minutes into the film. Tim Johnson, one of the organizers, wrote in an email that they will try to show the film in a different manner.

The screening is free and open to all.

MARFA – Marfa Live Arts presents actor Johnny Stallings who will perform Whitman’s epic poem Song of Myself on Friday, September 22, on the lawn of the Presidio County Courthouse in Marfa. The performance starts at 7pm.

One of the original twelve poems from Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1855), Song of Myself is considered a representation of Walt Whitman’s poetic vision. Having connected with the work at an early age, Stallings performs the work from memory in venues across Oregon, his home state. According to Stallings, Song of Myself’s “astonishing celebration of beauty” communicates Whitman’s vision of “the simple life” in a transformative way.

On the following day, Saturday, September 23, there will be a Walt Whitman workshop taught by Stallings focused on Song of Myself at the Marfa Visitor’s Center. The workshop will provide opportunity to discuss the work and its cultural and personal significance.

Both events are free and open to the community.

For more information see: www.marfalivearts.org.

Kim Thornsburg

MARFA – The Hotel Paisano hosts an exhibit of the model ship collection of Kim Thornsburg at the Greasewood Gallery from 6-8pm today, Thursday, August 31.

The reception is free and open to the public.

The exhibit will run through the end of September.

Thornsburg, a Marfa High School graduate, received a Master’s degree in Mathematics from Sam Houston State University, served as a Naval and Coast Guard Search and Rescue Pilot and Public Relations Officer for the Head of the Armed Services, U.S. Sen. John C. Stennis.

Thornsburg is now a retired mathematics teacher and is presently teaching part-time for Marfa ISD.

Thornsburg and his wife returned to Marfa in 2014 and has since authored two books on Marfa history, “The Marfa Lights” and “The Marfa Sketch Pad.” Thornsburg describes his latest book, “Jew for Oil,” as “a detailed account involving President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in what may well have been the most diabolical event of World War II.”

Several of the ships involved in this clandestine war against Jewish immigrants fleeing Nazi Europe are featured in the Thornsburg collection.

The Thornsburg models have been featured in a variety of national and international documentaries, magazines and newspapers including The Marfa Big Bend Sentinel, God’s Learning Channel in Midland, The Texas Country Reporter, Houston Chronicle, Marfa Magazine, Google Images, Robb Report, and the Jerald Hines (Mr. Exxon) and Associates Fine Art Gallery located in the Texas Republic Bank in downtown Houston.

Thornsburg’s models have aced “Best of Show” at the Midland Fine Art Octoberfest and the Tri-State Fair in Florida.

“Ironically, [my] fi rst professional model was a model of NASA’s Skylab – a model which lead to [my] arrest for designing and building (upon request by Data Control) the fi rst scale model of this “Top Secret” satellite.” All of the Thornsburg models are, in fact, researched, designed and constructed without plans.

There are a variety of models yet to be constructed, including the famous Count Von Luckner’s World War I Seadler, The Ghost Ship of the Arctic, the Mary Celeste and a variety of Aliyah Bet (Holocaust) ships. All of these plank-on-frame models will soon be on display in Thornsburg’s model ship studio, presently under construction at his Marfa residence.

“Personal accounts and memorabilia were given to [me] by the very individuals who sailed onboard some of these historic ships detailing information not found in any known publication to date. In fact, several of the…models were constructed using material taken directly from the hull of the very ship itself, including [my] model of the Elissa displayed in the Houston Yacht Club – the ony model ship registered with Texas Historical Society.”

Accompanying some of the Thornsburg models is a classical piano composition using the ship’s design as the composition motif. Some of these musical works were performed by the artist in a 1995 Country Reporter documentary, in community concerts throughout the Houston area, and at Sul Ross State University.

Greasewood Gallery is located in the Hotel Paisano at 207 N Highland on the corner of Texas St. in Marfa. For more information call Vicki Lynn Barge, gallery director, at 432-729-4134.