Slide #3

How did your father end up settling in Marfa? My father looked for the least populated part of America in the desert. He looked at New Mexico, Baja, Mexico, my mother and my brother went camping in Baja. He was trying not to be in a place that was too cold. When we got to Marfa though, he was just living there as a member of the community. It must have been much different in Marfa when you were a kid than it is now. It was quieter. It wasn’t until after he [my father] passed away—I think I say this in the Huffington Post article—there was no cappuccino or salad, until like, mid or late 90’s, and my dad passed away in 1994. There was always a sense that there was an economic crisis in town, but he never saw the upswing. I read somewhere that Marfa could have the potential to develop into the next Santa Fe. Do you think that’s possible? There are a few reasons why I think it's not as likely to be Santa Fe. Marfa is 200 miles away from the nearest airports. It's kind of like being on an island, like you have to take a ferry to get away. And the population is around 2,020 and is declining. I think there's some really good things that happen when people who have money or who are inventive or smart or get creative in a place like that, because for the whole time my dad was alive, it was not hip or happening. Do you go back to Marfa? I do. I was there in October. Do you have relationships with people there? I do, the Foundation is there and I have people who I went to school with who still live there, I have somebody who I went to school with here [in New York] who moved there in 1994 and now runs a restaurant there. Very small world. [Rainer Judd, Photo via, via]
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