South West(ish) Part One

We begin this journey some three years ago, when we embarked on a hazily planned South West(ish) roadtrip, that we filled in the blanks of as we went. Shortly after crossing the border into Arizona, we followed some hearsay and pre-trip interwebby rabbit hole-ing about a nudist bookseller in Quartzsite. We made the detour, following the signs into Quartzsite, but found this some-time boom town rather empty. With no smart phone gadgetry or even the name of the supposed bookshop and/or resident nudist, we ducked into various establishments about the "town" and eventually found the Reader's Oasis. Paul Winer, the owner of said establishment and nudist extraordinaire, regaled us with tunes and stories and local history and an overall joie de vivre we can only hope to embody at some point in our life (clothed or otherwise).

We purchased some local history zines and postcards from the man and then continued our summery desert slog eastward towards that valley of the sun, a megalopolis somehow sprung from the desert heat and lack of water (in my mind) more miraculously than Vegas and other incongruously mega-peopled places that were not meant for that many people (I suppose I am one to talk, existing for most of the year in one of these zones). 

On the way out, we paid homage to Hadji Ali (hi, jolly!)

Soon after arriving in the valley of the sun, we ducked into air conditioning and some tsoft tserve.

Resident Phoenix Phemale and lovely Phriend Nikki reflecting on how deliciously necessary these Nami treats were in combating the absolute inferno awaiting us outside (speaking of delicious PHX spots, we went here later that nite, so incredibly delicious and highly reccommended, but don't have the pictures to post here, so maybe it didn't happen after all?).

Some of us were better prepared for that inferno than others...

The next day we continued our Eastward traipse, dipping southward, drawing nearer and nearer to the border (speaking of which, have you (assuming there is a "you" reading this) watched through any of these? incredible and addicting), in search of more rumored AZ magic. This magic would be made out of snake skin, mostly, instead of the previously discussed overly energetic nudity magic.

We found Rattlesnake Craft (now, unfortunately, no longer in existence) after battling some of the worst wash-boarded roads we have ever experienced. 

And we drew ever closer to our neighbors to the south, finally landing in Bisbee and found this sticker...your anarchy is not my anarchy, but I like the sentiment nonetheless. 

Found some colorful geometry, both painted...

...and mined

Further East, more off-roading and we came across a first in our travels: a dirt overpass...

...on the way to Cabinetlandia (also, see here).

Read up on dust

Flipped through the national archive

and came across a surprise.

The environment is harsh out there. Had we known the shape of the national archive and had the skills/supplies to repair the sandbag architecture, we totally would have.  We could only bear witness to its decay. 

This southern part of New Mexico is a corridor of arts (at least for us) and somewhat close to Cabinetlandia lies the Faltese Impact Site.

We began seeing only Triangles. 

After a good nite's rest in Las Cruces, we entered a different realm entirely.

In this realm, white dunes extend as far as you can see and the further we hiked into it's interior, the less bearings we had on our location within it and blue and white became the only discernible palette our surroundings were painted in. White Sands NP was and still remains one of the most uniquely beautiful places we have been to. As always, pictures and stories in general are no comparison for the reality of being in a place and this has never ringed as true as it did and does for this magical place (that our Gov't still uses for bombing practice, for some reason).

'twas scooped and cleared from the road like snow by the local municipal machinations

I lurked hard on this family who had come prepared for the dunes with sleds until they relinquished one into my control.

Quite slow going down 'em

Much more fun to jump and run down them at full speed

We skirted the border more and found ourselves in that ultimate (and somehow "safest city in America" on a number of different occasions) border town, El Paso. We headed straight for the Casa De Azucar.

and then, after a brief detour (again thanks to no smart-fonery) to a nearby military base to engage in some directional reconnoitering with the beefcakes manning the imposing entrance of said base, we found our way to the Hueco Tanks. We understood almost immediately why this place is of significant cultural and spiritual significance to the local Native American tribe. A certain power/presence exists there and lounging about the interior of one of the rock clusters was incredibly powerful and humbling (and quite comfortable as well, especially compared to the blistering heat outside of its innards). We were able to see some pictographs, but the more intact and impressive ones are only available to see on a pre-arranged guided tour which we arrived much too late for.

Hueco means "hollows" en español and the Spanish dubbed this cluster of rocks thus because of the various natural hollows and divots in the rocks which collect rain water and keep it in easily accessible pools for extended periods of time, long after the surrounding areas are dry and dusty.

We climbed out on top of one of the rock clusters and the amount of greenery was astounding (comparatively, at least). I wonder how this area is doing now, in our 4th (or so) year of drought?

Onward to Marfa. Stopped by the Prada store, which, in retrospect, served as a harbinger of the art letdown (or, the art of letdown) that awaited us in this far West Texas "art" destination town (We didn't bother stopping or taking a picture of the Playboy sculpture thing, which is apparently moving to Dallas). 

We camped here...

...the sunsets were astounding.

We strolled the town. Glass fence!

and got Chinati'd. As mentioned previously, this tour of Marfa made "art" into something rather tedious and uninspired feeling for us, certainly more so than other arty locales we went to previously on this SW jaunt and all of the ones we visited after Marfa. This tour of the Chinati Foundation really drove this point home and after we had endured the endless Dan Flavin corridors and left the Foundation, we did not want anything else to do with "art" and spent the rest of the day onna walkabout which ended at the Marfa Lights viewing platform just outside of town. The vast West Texas nite sky and cold cement of the viewing platform were all the perfect antidote to our art freakout and in retrospect, I can appreciate Judd's unique take on creation and life and the intersection of the two. Plus there is this now, which probably necessitates a Marfa returnal at some point. 

Melissa exiting a previously mentioned Flavin corridor, towards the much more interesting natural light flooding the opposite end. 

Also, Judd left a lot of the original signs and paintings in the buildings that his sculptures are now housed in. I felt drawn to these details purposefully left in the converted hangars and upon further reflection, this attention to detail adds to the intrigue, mystique and magnetism I have felt for Mr. Judd in the intervening years between our visit and now.

Chamberlain car-ball crumple colors 

Fabulous Food Shark! Also (not pictured) we came across this glorious bookstore in town and highly recommend it should you need to pick up some books to read to your travel partner to pass the time driving through the massive wilds of West Texas.

We caught this movie on the opening night of the Marfa film festival (and the closing night of our time in Marfa) onna massive blowup screen thing. The movie was okay...

...the setting was phenomenal (foto below was the view just to the right of the screen).

The next day we passed through those massive wilds of West Texas, due north, to the wilds of a different sort in the panhandle of that lone star republic. We stopped by nerd glasses graceland for air conditioning and BH jams.

O Boy!

We sought out Ozymandias of the plains. We looked upon his works, sans tube socks and despaired accordingly. 

Amarillo necessity...paying homage to ten Cadillacs stuck into the ground, covered in innumerable layers of spray paint. Melissa got busy with a spray paint cap pyramid...

...while I lurked some more, this time on a church group wielding many cans of spray paint, in the hopes of gripping a can once they finished "tagging" the cars up. Weird scene.

I climbed one to tag our route upon...

...but Melissa, as always, did something better/more aesthetically pleasing.

Th'route!

Later, still in Amarillo, we set about tracking down as much of the Dynamite Museum as we could.

We got heavily lambasted for trying to document the one below, thus I had to sneak a picture out of the window of the car on our way to the rest of the "museum."

Great project and something we would love to return to experience more fully. The dood behind it all, and behind the Cadillac Ranch and other 'rillo projects, is quite a creep. SM3 still put a lot of money behind projects that get us stoked and that is more than can be said for a lot of other rich creeps.

We gave up on the museum hunt for the night and headed to our campsite on the outskirts of town (not pictured)...

...and as we set up our tent, we saw storm clouds racing towards us in quite a dramatic fashion and as soon as we had the tent standing, the storm was upon us, ripping up tent stakes and threatening to take our tent with it. We wrangled the tent into the trunk and re-evaluated our situation in the eye of that storm. We decided to not sleep there and continue our trajectory north until we had passed through the storm, having next to no experience with this kind of weather that rips through the great plains. We drove further into the storm, until there were lightning strikes happening all around us every three to five seconds. We could hardly speak to one another during this storm drive, and I white knuckled us through it driving as fast as I could, running over an armadillo at one point, I think (which effectively killed the A/C in the car, the effects of which we will get to later). We got to the other side of the storm, pulled into the parking lot of the first cheap hotel we could find, I threw the car in park and ran about the parking lot yelping and dancing and high five-ing our good luck and spared lives before duct taping the underside of my car back together, for that mid storm road killing left my undercarriage flapping about. Needless to say, our minds were on other things during this time than taking fotos, so you will just have to take our word for it. The next morning, we exchanged that panhandle for the next one to the north and shortly after we had entered that no man's land sliver of OK, we read about it linearly and otherwise.

We contemplated the 'xthaere and upon our near deathers of the nite before.

Shortly thereafter, we crossed off our forty sixth state. Kansas was not a part of the original hazy smi-planned plans, but we were drawn to the plethora of art and intrigue of the place, and we had somehow missed out on travelling within its borders as we criss-crossed the country slinging posters in our younger years. We had even been to Kansas City, but just on the Missouri. Anyhow, we still, two years removed from this trip, have four states left to see (Alaska, Hawaii, North Dakota and, somehow, Connecticut).

Mullinville necessity, the Kanza art studio of one MT Ligett. 

Quite an ornery, intelligent and singular person, this MT. "They must love you here" we commented to him after seeing his work scattered about the town on houses and roadsides. "No, they hate me here, actually" he retorted. Thus is the life of a small town self appointed bourgeois.

We cheked out his mug collection and he scooped up a metal heart to blast a Trager into on our behalf. 

Pre game

Heart blastin (without any sort of protective eyewear. Impressive bodily disregard).

Thar she blows.

Dem Pyles!

Like so many others, cant quite get it outta there...

We loved that he saw through it all/for what it is

Poofers...

...and truthers abound. 

Previously mentioned works scattered about the town

Simple, effective...

And then we arrived in Lucas which felt like the perfect antidote to Marfa. This tiny hamlet, deep in post rock country/the middle of nowhere, boasts a surprising amount of art related/community driven activity that felt authentic in most of the ways that Marfa felt pretentious/not community oriented. We rented the house below for the three days we were in town, fifty bucks total for the three days.

Our temporary homestead was caddy corner to the Garden of Eden, which is what Lucas' current arts community seems to built around and inspired by. Below is Mr. Dinsmoor and his family (second, much younger wife) in a DIY frame.

Tools of the trade

And then onto Samuel P Dinsmoor's philosophical/political/mystical outlook on life, captured in cement for us all to ponder/take to heart. Below is the crucifixion of labor, surrounded by those forces in society that vie to crucify him/her that labors.

And the masoleum that he built for his first wife (who he exhumed a day after she was buried in the city lot. He paraded her about the town before finally enclosing her in cement within the mausoleum so that no one could remove her from it). Dinsmoor researched ancient mummifying practices before his own death and left instructions for those he left behind to mummify him once he died. Some eighty years later, we were able to see him within the mausoleum in fine form (couldnt sneak a foto, sorry). 

From the same tree-barren necessity that produced posted rocks all around that part of Kansas, Dinsmoor fashioned "logs" out of the native limestone to then make his log cabin out of. Below you will find the Tragers blinking in the sunshine of their love/good fortune to see this monumental/singular vision in rock and cement.

Details follow...

The fullness of it (kinda)

P'rocks up close

Inside the bowl plaza

Thank you, Kohler!

Big wipes

Right next door to the Garden of Eden (and across the street from our fifty dollar rental house) you can find the homebase of the World's Largest Collection Of The World's Smallest Versions Of The World's Largest Things. We were lucky enough to catch the incredibly itenerant proprietor of the collection, Erin, at her homestead and talked and talked about balancing "home" and travel lust, creation, fuel guilt, design and the endlessness of 'merica.

This converted shortbus housed the collection for many years. Erika was in the process of transferring the collection to a more fuel effecient vehicle while we were there.

Along the bottom of this new vehicle, Erika had painted a "who's who" of art environments, visionary spaces and biggest things. It was amazing to see our places we had been and want to go to desperately collected in one place. Shared interests/passions/obsessions are always nice to discover amongst friends/strangers/friendly strangers.

This was Erika's reminder of that previousy mentioned fuel guilt. An overwhelming evil that we all participate in, hopefully not for much longer.

Erika and her homestead and her lard shirt. The best

The name game!

Pop tops!

A few fotos above and the few below were all taken in the Grassroots Art Center. Grassroots was an exhaustive and exhausting (in the best way) collection of KS artists and artisans who also works to seek out, restore and save art that is in danger throughout the state.

Orange excitement

Such an amazing space/organization (especially for a town with a little over three hundred people).

A few doors down from Grassroots, we found the Flying Pig.

We spoke with Mr. Abraham For awhile, I was a bit timid and only shot a foto of a foto of him. We felt honored to spend time with the man and hear his many tales. Less than a year after our time with him, he passed away...rest in peace, you world famous artist.

They really lived up to the "community" part of the sign below, with people from the community volunteering to run the projector and man the ticket booth. A few years before our visit, the people of Lucas pooled their monies to refurbish the theater and update it to the needs of the digital age.

We saw this the nite before, here is my review...

The rest of our southwesterly traipse to be continued in part two...