May 31, 2005

Marfa, Indeed!

Wouldn't it just be terrific to have a Marfa, SC? What's so wonderful about Marfa is that it was created with the utmost integrity and absolutely no concern whatsoever as to whether anyone else would care.

There's a real marketing lesson there.

An artist - in this case, Donald Judd - happens upon a town in west Texas...well, hardly a town...it's not much more than a crossroads...the railroad passed through, and they filmed some of "Giant" there...that's about it. But Judd liked the space, the openness, the privacy of his own domain, and he darn near bought all of the town. He made art there, and encouraged a few others to make extraordinary installations...Oldenburg, Flavin, Chamberlain. It was a pure experiment...done entirely for its own sake. And, in the middle of nowhere....four hours from El Paso and four hours from Midland.

Today, several years later, Marfa is a destination. It's practically a pilgrimage for anyone genuinely interested in contemporary art. It's amazing...a totally thrilling experience.

What it says to me is that you don't need to have a feasibility study for integrity. And you don't need to get all wound up in inferiority-complex arguments such as "Gee, why would anyone come here...we're so far off the beaten track." What matters most is, Is it Authentic? Is it True? NOT, is it convenient (it's not); are there good hotels there (there aren't); can I go shopping (you can't).

Phony comes and goes. Marfa is the Real Thing. And that's what sticks. Yes, we need more Marfas.

In Memoriam

Over the weekend, I e-mailed Linda Christian. We hadn't communicated for some time. She worked with us some years ago, and then her husband Greg - a brilliant radiologist - got a great job in New York and then in London.

Linda had worked with Adam Hanft, one of my favorite people in the ad business...or any business. Adam's the guy who coined "Flick your Bic"and then went on to become a major guru in our industry. He's a prince.

When she moved to Charleston and I heard about her from Adam, I rushed to woo her to our firm. What a blast!

Linda was a great conceptual thinker. Give her a marketing challenge, and she would go to the conference room, close the door and scribble out all of these almost illegible legal pad pages deconstructing the problem and presenting an incredibly cogent solution.

She wrote fast and in many colors. She never typed. She didn't seem at all interested in computers or any other technology. Her brain was technology enough.

She never even wore a watch. On deadline, she might be heard to shout from her office, "What time is it?" Otherwise, she was just "taking care of business"...as well as being a great wife and mother to two beautiful children.

I loved the way she looked, although I'm not sure that she did. She didn't like to have her picture taken. She was self-effacing and prideful often at the same time. "I'm a hundred thousand dollar woman!" she would declare. Alas, not in Charleston!

In her spare time (how did she have any!), Linda created games. I had an idea for an interactive game and wanted her advice on it, which is why I e-mailed her. Greg wrote me back that she most certainly would have had a lot of ideas...but - oh, how tragic - she has died of ovarian cancer.

So bright, so zippy, so zestful, so insightful, so wonderfully quirky. Linda's presence was a great, great gift to us.