Dear Friends,
Today, I'm announcing the online release of the Marfa Field Guide films. This is a collection of six films about the relationship between humans and nature in Marfa, Texas. The films were commissioned by arts non-profit Marfa Live Arts and are now available online for the first time.
Marfa Field Guide was a collaboration with my wife, Laura Copelin. Laura was the curator and director of the art space Ballroom Marfa when we lived there. Many of the exhibitions she organized at Ballroom related to the natural world and we both share an interest in plants and ecology.
These films are short vignettes, notes from the field, sketches—one film was shot entirely on a phone by our friend Vicente (who also played the voice of Cabeza De Vaca in my film Opuntia). The series catalogs ways of relating—killing, caring for, collecting––and the idea was to document without judgement. Like some of my projects (see Wood) this series suggests the possibility of a larger body of work that didn’t come to be. But an interest in how humans participate in our ecosystems is now central to my work and life—I’m the nature Producer at a PBS station and my desire to connect with plants, animals, fungi, and rocks has deepened inside and outside of my work.
The films in the Marfa Field Guide are:
Mary and the Elf Owl (2 min): bird rescuer Mary Farley rehabs the world's smallest owl.
Paul's Marfa Agates (1 min): Rock shop owner Paul Graybeal introduces us to the signature rock of Marfa.
Vicente and the Bees (2 min): when a swarm of bees takes up residence near Vicente Celis' juice bar, drastic and harmful removal suggestions fly. Vicente takes a kinder path and asks beekeeper Wilborn Elliott to help out.
Joy The Fur Trapper (3 min): Cowboy Hall of Fame honoree (and sister of beekeeper Wilborn Elliott from Vicente and the Bees) Joy Rawls recounts her unconventional life as a trapper.
Donald Judd’s Nature Books (2 min): iconic artist Donald Judd’s house in Marfa contains a library with thousands of books. We focus on his nature book collection and hear a selection from Judd's notes dated December 3, 1986, read by Marfa poet and bookstore owner Tim Johnson.
Dr. Powell’s Herbarium (3 min): an intimate portrait of a herbarium (a collection of preserved plant specimens) founded by Dr. Michael Powell.
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