"A Hotel Connects Past and Present in Marfa," Surface Magazine (FEATURED WORK)
Excerpt:
"The soft Australian sheepskin rugs in the rooms at Marfa’s just-opened Hotel Saint George are the perfect welcome after a day of trekking through the grounds of the Chinati Foundation, Donald Judd’s contemporary art museum. It’s just one of the stops on my mission to capture some of the magic that swirls through this mythical desert settlement, the kind that entices such a stylish boutique property to open in a remote locale with a meager population of 2,000 people. Part of Marfa’s appeal is also its most unpleasant attribute—it’s arduous to get to, and that reduces the number of visitors.
My ten-hour journey from New York was draining, though the three-hour drive through the Chihuahuan desert softened the burden. The wide-open landscape and endless expanse of sky attracted Judd to the area in the 1970s; they remain a major draw today. So does one of the unlikeliest culture scenes anywhere in the world. “Judd really filled up the town, and when he died, it allowed other people to think, what could I do in Marfa?” says Joey Benton, founder of the design and fabrication studio Silla."