MARFA – The Judd Foundation’s first completed project in its Marfa Restoration Plan is the Agave Garden, an outdoor native plant garden that is free and accessible to the public. The foundation will celebrate the garden’s opening during the Agave Festival Marfa, with a virtual talk on Friday.
Located in a small enclave on West Oak Street between Highland and Austin Street, the Agave Garden has two Donald Judd-designed benches, over 20 varieties of native agave plants, and is walled in on three sides by Judd’s signature adobe and concrete mortar walls.
“We wanted to create places where the community could access Judd spaces when possible,” said Judd Foundation President Rainer Judd. The Architecture Office, which recently caught fire just weeks ahead of its planned opening, was going to have The Project Room, which was a community-oriented space. Though it will be a few years before the public can take advantage of that space when it is rebuilt, the new Agave Garden is a small taste of the increasing accessibility to Judd spaces in Marfa.
The plans for a native garden in Marfa sprang to life two years ago, when Rainer Judd introduced Bertha González Nieves, the co-founder and CEO of tequila company Casa Dragones, to Jim Martinez, a local agronomist and landscape designer, during the Agave Festival. González Nieves said, “We are committed to supporting initiatives that awaken the interest in Agave across Marfa, Mexico and around the world,” so together the group hatched a plan to bring agave knowledge into the heart of Marfa’s downtown.
To create the space, Martinez selected native Chihuahuan Desert agave species that have been used by indigenous people for food, beverages, fiber and ceremonial purposes for millennia in the area. He planted them around two Judd benches, which will give visitors a contemplative place to spend time in the garden.
“I think that there’s a lack of awareness of just how important native plants are to the survival of our ecosystem, particularly during climate crisis times,” Rainer Judd said. While invasive or non-native species can work against an ecosystem, she explained, “The simplest way to think about it is that the native plants have co-evolved with the native birds, bees, bats, animals and snakes for millions of years.”
Printed “field notes” will be available to accompany the garden, offering insight into the biodiversity of Chihuahuan Desert agaves.
Though Judd is best known for his art, the artist always had an integrative approach to his work and where it was sited. The Judd Foundation stewards Judd’s art, the spaces that house it and the land that surrounds the spaces. By developing the new outdoor space, Rainer said, “I think we’re growing into our mission.” Though her father had long saved the space to use for a fruit and vegetable stand for the community, for decades it remained empty and untouched.
“It was hard to see the space which had so much potential sitting unused for a number of years, knowing that Don had plans for community use,” she said. “And though he did not say ‘agave garden,’ I think it takes living, creative, excited, hungry, shade-needing, living humans to come up with these ideas that manifest the mission in a beautiful way.”
In a release ahead of the opening event, she referenced her father’s words, saying, “Don wrote, ‘my first and largest interest is in my relation to the natural world, all of it, all the way out.’ This thinking is central to our work and we hope the garden provides greater awareness of his interest in the region and his commitment to the city of Marfa.”
While the garden wasn’t a top priority in the restoration plan, when Casa Dragones sponsored the project, its completion was accelerated. Since a fire decimated the foundation’s progress on its Architecture Office restoration, Rainer Judd said she was looking for something to lift her spirits, and the garden opening is doing just that. “The agave garden is just something small, but actually I’m blown away this week by the sense of meaning it has for people, and what 20 agave and two benches can do,” she said. “It’s a little bit healing for us, and we hope for other people, to integrate the landscape that sometimes is hard to access and be able to bring it a little closer to home.”
On Friday, the space will launch with a virtual talk between Rainer Judd, Martinez and González Nieves. The link to watch the virtual talk can be found at agavemarfa.com, and a community celebration at The Sentinel will follow from 6-8 p.m. with free specialty drinks by Casa Dragones. The cocktail will remain on the menu through July, with 10% of the proceeds benefiting the Marfa Volunteer Fire Department.