Blank Slates: A Beginning

My father would have hated this set of white canvases displayed at the Smithsonian’s National Art Museum. The man’s been dead since 1997, but I could hear his voice muttering “What the hell is this?” as he sprinted through the gallery. I remember as a child seeing a room of Rothko’s and being swept up in the enormous color fields. It was mesmerizing and I wanted to sit on the bench surrounded by his wall paintings. But my dad couldn’t get the family out of there fast enough. Contemporary art bugged him and placed him squarely in the category of people who look at such art and think, I could paint that myself. 

Washington, DC