About 20 miles from Marfa lies Fort Davis, an unincorporated desert town of roughly 900 residents, where rock formations known as hoodoos rise from the West Texas landscape. In the town center, inside a 1906 adobe Masonic lodge hall, Tim and Julie Webb run Webb’s Fair and Square, the far-west outpost of their long-running Webb Gallery 500 miles away in Waxahachie.
The Webbs first built their reputation dealing in antiques, including folk art, handmade quilts, and early Mexican textiles. “Just things we liked personally, but especially on the handmade end of things,” Julie Webb says. Over time, the gallery’s focus expanded as they met contemporary folk and self-taught artists. Exhibitions and informal gatherings soon followed, drawing a devoted local audience.
What interests the Webbs most is naive work and the output of outsider artists whose practices are driven by an internal impulse. “It’s not about art for art’s sake,” Webb says. “Art is something inside that you have to do.”
Leigh Kvetko in front of her textile pieces at Webb’s Fair & Square.
