#128 / 2010 Spring: Marfa, Texas

MARFA, TEXAS

#128

We left the desert of Study Butte just as it was beginning to bloom. Truly the earth is so forgiving, like an indulgent mother, and the intensity of color in those delicate little flower petals surely is attributed to how much they must struggle to exist. So I guess our own struggles must makes us better people as well.

We had a real struggle accomplishing much of our work for the website and newsletter so we decided to leave a little early and get all that work accomplished. The newsletter hard copies will be late this issue due to a lack of print shops out in these remote locations, but Beatlick News is currently updated online at www.beatlick.com.

Now we are in Marfa, Texas. This is such a special little town and we continue to make contacts here. I want to emphasize again I don’t think we would be having the social experiences we do have if we were in an RV or truck camper. It is our VW bus that attracts others to us. Already we have a VW mechanic friend here, Pat Rogers. He moved his shop from Dallas to Marfa and works for a wealthy investor who has set up a car museum in Marfa and Pat runs it and maintains the cars.

There is always an international flavor here and the first night in town we were going to an art opening at Ballroom Marfa featuring Mexican artists. The Chinati Foundation, the Judd Foundation, and numerous other enterprises that this town is revolving around bring in artists from around the world. This night as we left the building a Hispanic and another Spanish artist were standing outside. For some reason we they saw us wanted to take a picture with us. They thought we looked like Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton. Ouch!

I want to mention the most dramatic person I met at the “In Lieu of Unity” exhibition - political artist Teresa Margolles. Her artistic milieu is the morgue and dissecting room. She has a degree in Forensic Medicine and Science of Communication from the Universidad Nacional in Mexico. She calls herself a forensic artist and uses this imagery to renounce violence in Mexico, not only that which has been attributed to the drug cartels but the individual murders of so many women in Juarez. Her work is shown all over the world.

The project for the Marfa exhibition was a movie showing a street cleaning truck spraying water on a highway, mile after mile. That is all. But what was represented so subtly was astounding.

Over the course of a month Teresa presented a fake press card to gain access to the murder scenes in Juarez. There she took pieces of clothing and used them to sop up blood from the streets where so many are being murdered. Then she dried all of these articles of clothing in the hot Mexican sun.

Next she took all those clothes across the border and rehydrated them and mixed that water with the 5,000 gallons of water in the truck. This is what was sprayed onto Highway 90 in Presidio County of Texas. She waited for a really hot day so the water being sprayed out of the truck would hiss on the street to symbolize the screams of the murder victim.

Teresa said she wanted to accomplish this because 90 percent of the weapons that are being used in so many murders in Mexico come from the U.S. and this was an appropriate way to distribute the blood shed because of those weapons.

I asked her if she was afraid of retribution by drug cartels accused of many of these murders.

"Fear is a fact of life in Juarez."

This is the quality of artist found in this tiny little Texas town. You can still expect to see locals riding horses down the middle of the street. So many people we have met told us they don’t bother to lock their doors. I didn’t see a single bicycle, which are prolific here, locked or chained. They are simply leaned against the buildings. The Hotel Paisano, where we park, is so hospitable and laid back. We go in there every day to use the wi-fi all day long. We use the bathrooms and help ourselves to the big fruit basket and coffee without ever being confronted or asked if we are guests of the establishment.

We were taking a walk down the road on Sunday and a man stepped out of his tiny little barber shop and just started a conversation with us. I guess Beatlick Joe and I are some kind of sight. His name was Abe Gonzales and he is the former sheriff and county judge here. We spent over an hour talking with him in his shop as he recounted his life as a boxer, track star, border agent and law enforcer. Today he enjoys taking care of his beautiful young granddaughters and resists the efforts locals make to lure him back as sheriff. There are some real issues here about the sheriff’s office and the jail house which has been closed down. But I’m not informed enough to go into that.

Even Abe, in that short time we spent together, wanted to offer us the hospitality of his property for the van, just as Pat has. But for now we are happy across the street from the Paisano. I can get five bars on the wi-fi reception even in the van. We will be here one more day and take the slow ride back to Las Cruces. Mid April we will be house sitting in Albuquerque and Placitas again. Looking forward to the hot water and electricity.

Happy Trails

Beatlick Pamela