I cannot overstate the profound impact of seeing Judd’s work in Marfa had on me. It changed my perception of life, landscape and my place within it. I have struggled my whole career with what to call myself. Am I an artist? An architect? A designer? A dreamer? A Poet? Judd didn’t seem to acknowledge these bounderies or labels. He just made stuff, wrote stuff; all with one very clear authentic voice. I crave this crystalline clarity. I have truly never been anywhere with such spatial and visual cohesion of a type that resonated so deeply with my own aesthetic. The landscape seemed dreamed by him and his artwork dreamed by the landscape. My experience enveloped inside this dream. It felt surreal. But more than anything, I felt relief. Relief from non-existent urban planning and consumer based architecture of most of Generic-America; coined “Generica” on our trip. I don’t think I realized how pained I was by most of what I live within. It’s like I awoke from a migraine of a busy, overthought, non-compassionate ugly. Everywhere I look my eye found peace. Open landscape, minimal geometries in found and designed buildings, art and graphics. It is my soul’s home.
