As part of our ongoing feature “Who’s At Ballroom Marfa This Week?”, I had the pleasure of speaking with K. Brandt Knapp and her boyfriend, Ash Kamel. K. Brandt and Ash were visiting Marfa from New York as part of (what has to be) the greatest holiday party. They were originally drawn to the Drive-In project space, because of K. Brandt’s relationship with MOS — she studied with Hilary Sample of the company in college — but ended up exploring the rest of our Comic Future exhibition. It had been a dreary and quiet Saturday, but they helped liven up the day, telling me about their impressions of Marfa, what they had done so far in town, and what they were up to next. In turn, they allowed me to gush about my favorite places in town (including a particularly long monologue about the boots at Cobra Rock) and provide some advice on what to explore during their final hours in town.

Ballroom Marfa: Is this your first time in Marfa?
K. Brandt Knapp: It is!

BM: Where are you guys from?
KBK: New York. Harlem, New York.

BM: You’ve been around Marfa today, so what was the highlight of your day?
KBK: Highlight… hmmm. We just came from the Block, where Judd had lived, so that was really exciting.
Ash Kamel: I liked the Block.
AK: I guess everything that we’ve done we’ve had a different experience, I don’t necessarily know that I would say there was a favorite… We did the sunrise tour at Chinati and then we saw the Flavin work as well, so it’s been a big day that I still need to process. There’s a lot here to see, as you know.

BM: I totally understand. It took me a few days for everything to really hit me… but I’m still processing it all four months later.
KBK: Yeah, I know it’s a lot to go through. Especially when you’ve seen pictures for so long, my first project ever in studio was based off of the concrete blocks, those works. That’s probably 13 years ago, so I’ve seen images and that was a founding thing for me in my education so to actually go and experience it and see what was directly in relation to it, for instance, I had no idea there would be a street behind it. I just thought it would be in the middle of nowhere.