It used to be a funny truism in Santa Fe, to paraphrase my memory of someone else's column-whose name I can't quite remember-that hipster citizens could be recognized by their tendency to "live on a dirt road but have a paved driveway and always be talking about their next trip to Indonesia."
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Well, the former is perhaps more true than ever but Indonesia has noticably lost out as the "it" destination to the unlikely minimalist dustbowl of Marfa, Texas. Long notable for its curious Dostoevsky-inspired name, minor roadside attraction the "Marfa Lights" and the as the setting for James Dean's Giant, Marfa became home to contemporary sculpture demi-god Donald Judd back in the '70s. Judd thought it appropriate for his monumental, monolithic works partly because of the attractive sparsity of the land and largely so that prissy art world stooges would leave him alone. That, of course, was a poor plan. Not only will prissy art world stooges follow legendary artists anywhere-off a cliff if you like-but soon after come Dan Rather and Tommy Lee Jones.
This at least according to
's coverage last week of growing tension between the good, traditional townsfolk of Marfa and the near epidemic-level intrusion of the globetrotting, art-sucking, Prada set now living, dining and walking among them. The Salon piece quite accurately details the tension that results when a down-to-earth town is "discovered" and goes through a cycle in which tourism shoots through the roof, many people make a great deal of money, property values soar, the long-time locals feel shut out and confused, especially when the "outsiders"-who initiated this escalation to begin with-want to control the outcome of future developments in order to preserve what attracted them in the first place, but everyone else is scrambling for a house they can afford, a restaurant they can eat at and a place to buy diapers and Budweiser.
One Marfan sensibly says poorly planned affordable housing schemes and a Wal-Mart will hurt the community in the long run. The next Marfan understandably wants to be able to buy a house for $60,000 and purchase mac 'n' cheese in bulk. Salon writers Andrew Nation and Stephanie Corley were kind enough to not take their comparisons beyond Taos, but I think there's another town in New Mexico that Marfa seems an apt microcosm for, don't you? With Santa Feans having been early adopters of "Marfa's Vineyard," home of the "Sagebrush Medici," there are some stark lessons happening in the Texas plains that we could do well to learn from in terms of our tending to our own patch.
Surveys have shown overwhelmingly that Santa Feans of all stripes are proud of being a cultural epicenter and an attractive city for artists. Things are fuzzier though, when we talk about which Santa Feans are comfortable with a $350,000 median house sale price and which Santa Feans are thinking Kansas is prettier than they first thought. Like Marfa, Santa Fe is blessed with a number of large, powerful cultural organizations. The flipside is that such amenities are attractive to former coastal dwellers who laugh like hyenas at half-million-dollar homes and don't know how to calculate a tip if it ain't prix-fixe. Still, these organizations get all the love, all the marketing, all the grant money, while the asset that we have and Marfa don't-the young and the restless-are far too little lauded. Which, hopefully will change, because Santa Fe is on the cusp of a big wave right now and people who are either young or restless (read foolish) enough to make things happen aren't getting enough attention.
Take artist and crazy fool Duvian Montoya for example-he's just opened Peanut Gallery (8380 Cerrillos Road, #408, 438-7333) in the Santa Fe Outlets. Just, you know, on the off chance that anyone hitting The Sunglass Hut and the Osh Kosh B'Gosh discount store is in the mood to buy some contemporary art (hint: if you actually are, go for the gonzo-anatomical weirdness of Emily Nash's ink on leather works or Kyle Gordon's terrifying, beer-limned photography). And no matter which side of the Marfan divide you sympathize with, if you can't get way down Cerrillos 'cause your dang truck's in the shop again or because your liquored-up ex-husband took the Lexus when he ran off with that bitch, it's more than worth it to stalk the former Josie's tortilla factory on Agua Fria, existing at least through the end of the month as Raw Art (1030 Agua Fria St., 603-0127), where Michelle Cooke has invited a thick, wholesome quesadilla's worth of contemporary artists to thoughtfully get nuts in the renovated space. From the youthful but promising genius of Norah Lovell to gorgeous video stills by Marion Wasserman, clever design-ish tiles by Tasha Ostrander and simple, Zen swordstroke still lifes of leaves by Cooke, the whole show is drop-dead elegant and inspiring.
Give people silly enough to circumvent the system in the first place a little much-deserved recognition and maybe they'll be pumped up enough do something really silly and inspiring, like Box Gallery proprietor Michelle Oullette, who quietly packed up shop on gritty Baca Street and moved to new digs (1611-A Paseo de Peralta, 989-4897) right across the tracks from SITE Santa Fe. Or, in other words, right onto the Railyard property, Santa Fe's most apt microcosm of Marfa, where contemporary art and progressive development clash with historic design and traditional values. Fortunately, Santa Fe is bigger than those two simplistic extremes. Oullette's gallery won't have to choose Prada or Pabst, because the thickest cut is in the middle. And, unlike Marfa, we've still got that young restless demographic-paraded yet ignored, though still doing their thing-people like Cherry Tempo and company, solving the issue of a community in the throes of an identity crisis by simply plugging in, late at night and without permission, right off the Plaza and throwing an impromptu dance party that isn't complete until it's lit by the disco accompaniment of confounded squad cars and nervous police flashlights. Let's see that happen in Marfa.
