Marfa for Beginners

You can make a donation to the Marfa Nutrition Center in person, at 101 N. Mesa Street.

As a tourist coming to Marfa, you might have certain romantic notions about this place, ideas about the magic of a small desert town. Sunsets, sound baths, epiphanies and photos in front of Prada Marfa. But what if you live inside of that fantasy every day? What if you’ve spent your entire life watching people take selfies in front of your firehouse, your clinic, your courthouse, witnessing them having magical experiences over and over and over again while yours…is not that.

That’s the reality for Sam Salazar. Sam grew up in Marfa, and year after year, she’s watched the town she grew up in change into something unrecognizable. So she went out to talk to other people who grew up here to find out if they were feeling it too.

Produced by Zoe Kurland, Sally Beauvais, and Elise Pepple, in collaboration with Sam Salazar.

Music: Refraction, Pulsars, and Encounter by Podington Bear.

Source: Free Music Archive. License: CC BY-NC

You can make a donation to Marfa’s Volunteer Fire Department in person, at 110 E. Lincoln St., or mail it to PO Box 846 Marfa, TX, 79843.

This episode is about finding love in Marfa. Or trying to.

People wonder what it’s like to date here. The truth is finding love in the middle of nowhere can feel like waiting for the rapture - impossible. Even having a crush on someone is a thrill when you live in a town of 2,000 people.

Some people do find love out here– like magical, drive off into the sunset kind of love. But for the rest of us, Marfa can feel like a dating wasteland. A nightmare as vast and sprawling as the desert itself, where no place is safe. Not even the grocery store. 

Produced by Sally Beauvais, Zoe Kurland, and Elise Pepple.

Music by Jockimo.

You can donate to the Marfa Public Library online, at marfapubliclibrary.org.

A lot of people call the journey to Marfa a pilgrimage. Tourists come from all over the world, driving hours through the desert to see places like Prada Marfa and Ballroom. Most notoriously, they come to see Donald Judd’s artwork at the Chinati Foundation.

On their way to the foundation, visitors pass right by a lesser known pilgrimage site, in the backyard of Ester Sanchez. An apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared on Ester’s pecan tree in 1997. And people came from around the world to see it. In this episode, you’ll hear the story of the Virgin’s arrival, and what happens when two pilgrimages, two Marfa worlds, collide.

Produced by Zoe Kurland, Sally Beauvais, and Elise Pepple.

Music: Refraction, Pulsars, and Encounter by Podington Bear.

Source: Free Music Archive. License: CC BY-NC

What do you know about Marfa, Texas? Whether it’s Vogue magazine, The Simpsons, or I Love Dick, there’s a certain narrative about Marfa: the romantic art town in the middle of nowhere. But there’s more to Marfa than that. Marfa for Beginners is the audio guide to the Marfa you may not know: Virgin of Guadalupe sightings and limited Tinder options. A place where you can feel like a stranger in your own hometown while also feeling like there are zero degrees of separation between you and…anyone else.

Marfa For Beginners is an expansion of the narrative, a trip down a different road, a tourism podcast for locals…and what does that mean? To find out, listen weekly, starting September 13th.