pockets of silence

I was never a huge Rothko fan, until I saw Simon Schama's the power of art

What he said intrigued me, I had to take a deeper look at those images, and explore the artist's psyche. Then it all began to make sense...

"One morning in the spring of 1970, I went into the Tate Gallery and took a wrong, right turn and there they were, lying in wait. No it wasn't love at first site. Rothko had insisted that the lighting be kept almost pretentiously low. It was like going into the cinema, expectation in the dimness.

Something in there was throbbing steadily, pulsing like the inside of a body part, all crimson and purple. I felt I was being pulled through those black lines to some mysterious place in the universe. Rothko said his paintings begin an unknown adventure into an unknown space. I wasn't sure where that was and whether I wanted to go. I only know I had no choice and that the destination might not exactly be a picnic, but I got it all wrong that morning in 1970.

I thought a visit to the Seagram Paintings would be like a trip to the cemetery of abstraction - all dutiful reverence, a dead end. Everything Rothko did to these paintings - the column-like forms suggested rather than drawn and the loose stainings - were all meant to make the surface ambiguous, porous, perhaps softly penetrable. A space that might be where we came from or where we will end up. They're not meant to keep us out, but to embrace us; from an artist whose highest compliment was to call you a human being."

Simon Schama




I was moved to tears.
Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

there is one quote by Rothko which I keep playing over and over on my little tape recorder, this one sits in my chest, and like a slow burn, strips away the pretension I have about being an artist, what I want from my art, and where I want to go. It speaks to my soul, and on so many levels, I weep because I know it's true - I am desperatley seeking those pockets of silence.


"When I was a younger man, art was a lonely thing. No galleries, no collectors, no critics, no money. Yet, it was a golden age, for we all had nothing to lose and a vision to gain. Today it is not quite the same. It is a time of tonnes of verbiage, activity, consumption. Which condition is better for the world at large I shall not venture to discuss. But I do know, that many of those who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where we can root and grow. We must all hope we find them." Mark Rothko



Thank you Simon for opening my eyes to the world of Rothko. Thank you Mark for your honesty and determination in finding the truest meaning of being an artist.








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