Europe!
My first trip abroad after the years of Covid! I was hungry, not only for the food, the tastes of my childhood, but also for the Art, the Architecture and the sophistication of Paris, Stuttgart - my hometown & friends - Munich and Vienna. I spend much time in the Museums, revisiting old friends (paintings by the masters) and discovering original paintings by contemporary painters I had only seen in books. One of the most profound experiences was in the Brandhorst Museum in Munich. Two very large rooms on the top floor showing Cy Twombly's work, very large paintings, commissioned for those two rooms, reminiscent of the Monet paintings commissioned for the Orangerie long time ago. I had the luck to be totally by myself in those rooms except for the guards, it was a spiritual experience for me to see the paintings in the Rose Room and the Lepanto series
I have admired his work for a long time but have not seen very many originals. Here I could go up close and see the scribbles, the layers of colors, the drips and feel the passion, vision and courage it must have taken to make these paintings.
I have seen many other works, many paintings by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Kokoschka in Vienna, a city so rich in history and culture. Often I wish I could have asked the painter what his or her motivation was to paint that image, often painted 100 years ago.
I came home with almost a feeling of "how can I make something in the shadow of those masters"? I changed medium, went for acrylic. Something happened to my hands holding the brush dancing across the panels as if I was writing in a language not yet deciphered.
The title came to me in a flash: All that Jazz"
