We left on Tuesday morning via route 67 which took us almost all the way to Alpine, about 20 miles away from Marfa. We passed thru little West Texas towns - Venus, Erath, Comanche, Blanket, Brownwood, Alvorado, Valera, Ballinger, Early, Mertzon, Sherwood, Barnhart, Big Lake... Saw a number of parched golf courses along the way with yellowed grass, desolate. Signs we saw: "Vasectomy Reversal Procedures Here" and "Custom Slaughtering - Cow Pig Deer". Passed pecan groves and cotton fields, cotton bales. Checked into the Antelope Lodge on Tuesday night, had dinner at Casita's and walked around the highway stargazing. Wednesday morning got up at 8 to make it in time for the 10 a.m. tour at Chinati led by a nice kid named Ben, fellow grad of SAIC and a student of Candida Alvarez. Chinati is a 340 acre former military base, aka Fort D.A. Russell, which was converted by Donald Judd into the site for large-scale installation works, as an "alternative to traditional, anthology-sytle contemporary art museums". Started with viewing 2 buildings with aluminum cubes ("untitled works in mill aluminum"), then ceramics by Ken Price - organ like forms, a Russian schoolroom by Ilya Kabakov and than on to the Chamberlin metal sculptures which were located back in town in a building near the railroad tracks. Met this guy who was out from New York while on the tour.

Lunch break at Marfa Burrito where the propietor spoke no English and I got to practice my Spanish ordering veg for Kort. Funky little burrito joint run out of this senora's front room. The gringos go into the kitchen to point out what they want.

In the afternoon - started with the Flavin light pieces, and proceede to John Wesley paintings (largely figurative), graphite works by Ingolfur Arnasson, and poem works by the sculptor Carl Andre which were VERY interesting. One word sonnets repeated in 14 line patterns over and over again plus a series of alphabet poems.

In town, hung out at the Marfa Book Company which has a great art section and where I ran into Dawn Trook of Project Big Top who's gearing up for the project's first series of programs. The Brown Recluse is the other bookstore in town - used books and records, agua fresca, and empanadas. Picked up Pound's ABC of Reading and a book on raw "cooking" by Juliano, Demi Moore's personal chef who prepped her for her role in Charlie's Angels.

Thursday morning wandering around Alpine - 2 bookstores - 1 is an annex of the town library, junk shop, record store, and bakeries. Drive back to Marfa and check out Galleri Urbane which relocated from Silver City, NM and look at Polaroid works by Mike Slack and photographs by Michael Berman. This space is run by easily the nicest gallery owner in the world, Jason Willaford, who is himself an artist. At his suggestion, we walked over to the 2d gallery which is a transplant from Santa Fe, NM and which has a very Zen aesthetic - minimalist, spare, and clean-lined. A number of exciting artists in this space, among them Agnes Martin.

At 4:30, toured the Judd Estate on El Paso Road with Robert, a long time docent at Chinati. No photos allowed. The estate is surrounded by a tall adobe wall and inside the compound are 2 hanger style buildings, a lap pool, a grape arbor, a garden area, dog kennels, chicken coop, and greenhouse. The spaces in the compound respond to one another - the dimensions of the lap pool = equivalent to the dimensions of the herbal/veg garden directly opposite in the yard. The right side hanger housed 2 libraries of Judd's books, organized by subject matter (philosophy, art (subcategorized by country/culture), science, etc), and 1 gallery which houses Judd's first sculptural work which was made in 1962 after he quit painting. Through the alley between the internal and external walls of the compound to the 2nd hanger - more galleries and just opposite the bathrooms and sauna. End in the house where Judd first moved into with his 2 children when they settled in Marfa. Each of these buildings is filled with furniture Judd designed - chairs, beds, bookcases, etc.

On the drive home, a fine dusting of snow on the backs of cows. Trains and multi-colored boxcars, bales of cotton reminiscent of Judd's own structures. No sightings of the Marfa lights on this trip - too cold to be outdoors!