MARFA –– On Sunday, October 13, 2024, The Sentinel will host author James Ludeau, who will sign his debut book, Shit Marfa Taught Me: A Memoir, in conjunction with an artist’s showcase featuring new works by Fort Guerin, during Chinati Weekend. Stop in and meet the author and the artist between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. and hear from them personally how Marfa has inspired their works. These open hours are free to all.
James Ludeau is an artist, painter, photographer, and now author, from Lafayette, Louisiana. His debut memoir is about his travels to Marfa, Texas, over the last decade. A tale of an emotional journey told through the landscape, flora and fauna of the high desert of Far West Texas, it is an excavation of emotions and how he learned from the land and healed a traumatic past through his discovery and love of the desert that taught him to feel the beauty of the untamed American West.
The book’s artist, Fort Guerin, was raised in Mesa, Arizona, and draws inspiration from the Old West, pop culture and creating this new Western style with derivatives in comic panel paintings of the 40s and 50s. As a prolific artist of his particular style, Guerin creates a world of characters, Wild West stories and a lifestyle of long-lost cowboys, heroes and outlaws alike. Using seemingly found material, the butcher paper often used in Guerin’s works gives him the defining look that beckons the folk arts of American culture.
