Return to Rothko Chapel
The second time I’m sitting here in front of the work of Mark Rothko, letting them wash me and purify my mind and soul.
The first time was 10 years ago. I was attempting to grasp at life, wondering what I was here to do. My artistic arrogance had always scoffed at Rothko’s work, not really able to understand it or appreciate it, thinking how simplistic it was therefore not interesting.
I had been sent to Houston on a work trip, I felt very adult. No one had sent me on work trips before. I was there to learn a new curriculum for the school I had just been hired at. These 10 years later, I can barely remember going to any meetings or workshops and only remember the stillness of the chapel when I let it work through me and I through it.
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Who am I now? The chapel has not changed and yet I am a completely new person. During this second visit, 2 pieces had been taken out to restore some water damage. I wonder what has also been taken out of my world from damage to be repaired. What have I left behind? What is being restored to then later be reinstalled? What am I missing now that I had then?
These large flat depictions of blacks and grays before me are daunting, haunting, and oh so beautiful. They are mirrors, portals, opportunities to seek and find—invitations. Am I open to them? Do they know I’m here? Begging to be let in, desiring a greater existence and understanding. Are they as indifferent as the universe? Has the all-powerful forsaken the naive pilgrim, however humble?
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These canvases take away what is unnecessary and yet give me so much more than I could have imagined. They feel separate from their creator, like a living entity sent from a distant planet.
Closing my eyes, I’m confronted with the space of my eyelid shutting off the light from this world, I open them and experience the dim light from above barely giving these rectangles enough light to comprehend their presence and invite you to a deeper state of being.
How subtle, how arrogant, how bold to have made such paintings, such meditations. Could I ever achieve anything slightly in its vein?
The light filling the space ebbs and flows like a soft ocean wave revealing then hiding the sparkles of the infinite sandy beach. With each passing cloud—sun then grey, movement without moving, the implication of movement. The beauty of subtleties found in each brushstroke that isn’t even there. It was felt into being, no brush could have made this…just a soul in longing and desperation.
These charcoal and grey walls permeate into my consciousness, they vibrate through my forehead and into my skull. Penetrating any sense of structure or understanding. I let them in. They become my reality, walking through the earth becomes fantasy.
These bodies cannot stop moving, within each a deeper knowing and darkness that can’t be revealed without the subtle light seeping in. But who can afford to make windows? Who can really bring themselves to any revelation that would hurt themselves?
