A postcard from Marfa, TX

Art walks, star parties, and mysterious lights in the Texas desert

I grew up in Texas, where I’d heard about the mysterious Marfa Lights all my life. They’re these strange, glowing orbs that appear in the desert at night. No one really knows why they’re there, but they’ve helped turn the nearby town of Marfa into something of a travel hotspot. So when I recently talked about visiting, I was surprised by how many people asked, “What’s Marfa?”

Here’s how I’ve answered:

• “It’s a cool little desert town in the middle of nowhere, Texas.”

• “It’s an artist hub a couple of hours outside of El Paso.”

• “It’s like the Joshua Tree of Texas.” (I was advised to never repeat this to a Texan)

My best friend Jess and I decided to visit Marfa because it’s a halfway point between where we both live. Marfa was a great choice: the flight was short, the town is laid back, the food is good, the people are incredibly welcoming.

Marfa has been known for its art scene since the 1970s, when the minimalist artist Donald Judd moved to town. Before that, it served as a training facility for World War II pilots, and before that, it was a railroad stop named after a character in a Dostoevsky novel. We made a stop at Ballroom, a contemporary art museum probably best known for its 2005 “Prada Marfa” installation (although the actual installation is about 35 miles outside of the town). There, we checked out the work of writer and visual artist Christopher Blay, who had an Afrofuturist installation looking at race and and identity, and Virginia L. Montgomery, an experimental filmmaker.

Montgomery hand-raised Texas Luna moths for three months, then had them “look” at the moon through a gigantic telescope at McDonald Observatory.

As I mentioned, I first heard about Marfa in the context of the “Marfa lights,” a mysterious phenomenon where bouncing lights appear in the middle of nowhere in the Chihuahuan Desert. In 2004, the mystery was investigated by University of Texas students who determined that the lights were reflections from car headlights on a distant freeway. That doesn’t explain why accounts of the lights go back to the late nineteenth century, but maybe I’m just being hopeful. As my friend Adam, co-owner of Bitter Sugar Marfa put it, “At my age, I appreciate a good mystery.”

A 1965 newspaper clipping about the Marfa Lights

Some other highlights from the trip:

• Bitter Sugar, a local coffee shop with the world’s best cornbread

• Bordo, an Italian deli and 2025 James Beard finalist

• The pool at the Hotel Saint George is well worth it for the $30 day pass.

• The McDonald Observatory Star Parties (ours was canceled due to weather but the drive up there was worth it)

Had to do it…

We didn’t have time to do everything we wanted to do, not because we weren’t there long enough, but because the town operates on its own schedule. That’s part of Marfa’s charm. It doesn’t rush, and it doesn’t try too hard. Especially now, it felt good to be in a place where the people were kind and time seemed to stand still.