Here are two pictures from our recent trip to Virginia and Washington that I liked. The first is of Michael and Me at Monticello although you would never know that by the background but I did wear my patriotic tee.
This next picture is of Motherwell and Me. He is one of my most influential Abstract Expressionist painters. I didn't take down the name of this piece but from the looks of it it is from his Elegy to the Spanish Republic series though it doesn't display quite the quintessential forms as some of this series, it's just a little loose. Judging from the scale probably dates from the 1950's. These were painted as a reflection on the brutal and savagely bloody civil war and Franco's subsequent destruction of the Spanish Republic. Personally standing in front of a painting of this scale is impressive. The deep black forms surround your field of vision and seem to envelop you. Unlike Rothco whose canvases were like doorways to a bright and meditative spiritual realm, Motherwell opens you to the overwhelming destruction and pain that far too often falls upon our lives.
