Austin
“ I hope visitors will experience Austin as a place of calm and light.
Go there and rest your eyes, rest your mind. ”
Search this out: If art for you can be a sanctuary.
What is it: American artist Ellsworth Kelly’s only building. Permanently installed at Texas’ Blanton Museum, Austin is the culmination of Kelly’s seven-decade long career. This immersive artwork is a modern interpretation of a traditional Christian Chapel; all the elements we’d anticipate are there but rendered in a secular, modernist way — like awe-inspiring stained-glass windows, Stations-of-the-Cross marble geometric panels, and a central redwood curved totem, all installed in a monumental 2,715 square foot stone structure. Not your grandmother’s church — at least not ours.
Why you’ll love it: The play of color, form, and light through the three stained glass windows that change through the seasons, the placement of the sun, and the natural environment. It’s a truly time-based work that emphasizes the life-giving qualities of light. Kelly was finely attuned to color: the Tumbling Squares window (itself inspired by Chartres cathedral) and the Starbust windows span through careful gradations of color.
What you need to know: Kelly first conceived of this modern chapel in the 1980s but it took decades to realize the work in Austin and the artist never saw it finished (though he witnessed the beginning of the 18-month construction). Though Kelly himself was not religious, he was fascinated by how spirituality could be conveyed through both art and nature and had a life-long interest in Judeo-Christian forms.
How to bring this into your life from wherever you are: Though the Blanton Museum is closed during stay-at-home orders, you can experience Austin through a live-stream of two of the stained glass windows, and the Happy Hour curated conversation by the team who realized the work as part of their #MuseumFromHome series.
Why we think it matters: Spirituality comes in all shapes and forms. Even abstraction.
In their own words: “Kelly himself was constantly inspired by the natural world and was deeply aware of how perception can transform ordinary things into extraordinary–even spiritual–experiences, if we open ourselves to that possibility.
