“VIDEO: El Cosmico and Open House Weekend in Marfa, October 9th-11th, 2009″

Chris interviews artist Julie Speed in her studio in Marfa

So I’m not gonna lie: This weekend’s trip to Marfa was my first time there.  For years, people have always told me I’d love the art oasis in the desert.  I guess I just never had a reason to go there.  With friends riding the Marfa Bullet, El Cosmico Music Festival and Open House Weekend, I had THREE good reasons.

Marfa is crazy. Almost all of the buildings in its two-mile city limits are galleries.  Its transformation started in the 70′s when Donald Judd came from New York and began buying buildings and converting them into galleries. He felt that art and architecture had a synergy that couldn’t be replicated if the pieces were moved.  He set up the Chinati Foundation to promote these beliefs.  Open House Weekend is the weekend when all the galleries in Marfa are open-but not in that snotty way.  These openings are kinda like big parties!

This dog had David Bowie eyes!!

Marfa has also had a few movies filmed nearby.  Since the 50′s many famous people stay or dine at El Paisano Hotel.  Casts who’ve visited include Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and Rock Hudson from “Giant” and Daniel Day-Lewis from “There Will Be Blood.”  Check out the video for a brief tour.

In the video, below, you can get a good sense of what our first day in Marfa was like.  We started off at the farmer’s market.  While everyone breakfasted, I transformed into got my face painted as a lion (I was her first adult to paint!).  With my freshly found courage, we all found it easy to walk through the mean streets of Marfa.

While in Marfa, we had the chance to meet up with Julie Speed, one of my favorite contemporary artists whose works include collages, oils, prints and gouaches.  There is something dark and playful about her work.  You have to check it out to see what I mean.  She’ll be in Dallas next month and New York City in April 2010. GO VISIT HER!

Chris got the crowd at the baseball game to do the wave!

The day also included watching the legendary baseball match between the Austin Texas Playboys and the Marfa Yonke Gallos. [Read more here.].  Highlights from the game: Amy Cook hitting a home run, a black panther and a squirrel fighting, and an invasion of Thriller dancers.  I’m not quite sure who won, but it was a blast!

The nightlife for this weekend is also pretty fun.  El Cosmico this year had Ben Kwellar, Amy Cook, Tift Merrit and the Heartless Bastards on the main stage.  There were also some hedonistic dance parties in one of the Tee pees, and techno superstar Dan Deacon played in the city’s square.  If you’re looking for videos of that, well, we had, um, technical difficulties that prevented the video from shooting.

Oh yeah, and you can def hear my swine flu in the interviews.

You can also find PICTURES of the fun at El Cosmico Weekend 2009 and all the Austinites who attended, in our previous post.

WATCH: In the 5-minute video, Chris gets painted like a lion and runs around acting a fool. (Do you really have to go to Marfa to see that?!)

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