If you’re driving along united state 90 in between Van Horn and Valentine, you may see something gleaming distant towards the hills of Mexico. Large silver tumbleweeds? Perhaps. Detour down Cattle Ranch Roadway 2017, and you’ll bump into thick, metal assortments increasing from the sun-blasted desert flooring: Broken Mile and Mile Dark, sculptures finished in 2023 and 2024, specifically, by Marfa musician Matthew Gray. Both jobs, secured to structures made from 20,000 extra pounds of concrete, consist of a mile of light weight aluminum in the type of 250 hollow rectangle-shaped bars bolted with each other, each approximately 21 feet long. Gray is nearly made with a close-by 3rd item, Mile Quartered, which ought to be ended up by December and will certainly finish his Much West Texas Trilogy. He’s set up no indications or summaries, no instructions on just how to look at these artworks. They just exist, at home with every various other sharp, ornery, and self-willed point around.
This post initially showed up in the November 2025 concern of Texas Monthly with the heading “Miles From Nowhere.” Subscribe today.
