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Rothko's Inspiration

I recently spent a lovely four-day weekend in Portland, Oregon with Lee and Brittni.  I love Portland, perhaps because it is so easy to get around using public transportation, or perhaps it is the great food and drink options, or perhaps it is because the city is dominated with a strong Germanic culture.  At any rate, as usual I had a wonderful trip to Portland and my hosts played no small part in that satisfaction.

Lee and Brittni worked hard to show me a good time.  I arrived after taking an Amtrak train from Vancouver to Portland and then using Portland's light rail to get to their lovely downtown apartment.  We ate some great Thai and American classic food, I did a brewery tour and sampled my favorite sausage fondue.  I visited Brittni's work site, Adidas, where I purchased a new pair of tennis shoes/runners.  Lee and I saw the first ever all Somoan movie and Brittni and I were able to take in a lecture by Chris Rothko talking about life with his father, painter Mark Rothko.  No surprise, father Rothko was very focused in his art, but spent some of his free time sharing his love of music with Chris.  Son Rothko also commented that although there are parts of the relatively new play Red that are accurate about his father, Rothko never had an apprentice.  The apprentice is of course a ploy to help inform the audience what Rothko is thinking as he converses with the apprentice

Brittni and I also visited the gallery show of Rothko paintings after the lecture.  Here's a couple of examples:
No 61 Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue


Untitled
These painting inspired me.  For some time now we have had three pieces of painted locker paper Paul purchased in Mexico on the wall.  I enjoyed the artististic way Paul installed them, but they had been up for long enough.  My local craft shop had a sale on large canvases recently so I made a purchase and started painting.  Here's what I came up with:


My Rothko inspired masterpiece

Working with the colours of the couch/chesterfield below it, I started painting. Since the piece needed  to be horizontal rather than vertical to fit the space, I deviated from Rothko in that way.  However I took inspiration from the way he repeated colours with one light coat over another.  It took me a few hours to gesso the canvas and then paint.  Once it was dry it was pretty easy to hang since I had just had plenty of practice helping a friend get several pieces hung on her bedroom walls.   The lecture and gallery visit not only inspired this work I think I might have to see Red when it eventually makes its way to Vancouver.

Thanks Brittni for getting me to the a gallery for the lecture, we barely made it in but I appreciated the approach which gave me this inspiration.  You can check out in person my Rothko inspired work next time you're in town.

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