Angel of Light – Breath 02

Ticket in hand, I exited the ticket-counter door, faced toward when the Blanton Museum had called one of its most prized exhibits, and was instantly blinded by a flash of Texas sun. Once I had recovered, I could make out the clean lines of a white-stoned structure, sort of an over-sized igloo, stationed in the middle of a small yard while some pedestrian-looking office buildings hovered in the periphery. This was my hello to Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin.

Kelly, an outspoken atheist, a “transcendental artist,” as described by his long-time husband Jack Sheer, set out in the twilight of his seven-decade career as a gallery artist to create his own secular version of a chapel. The sanctuary would stand as a memorial to his self-professed exploration of bold geometric lines, form, color, and light. It was to be a place of “calm and light,” Kelly said, a breathing space for visitors to “rest your eyes, rest your mind.”

Excerpt from “Angel of Light” in Breath 02