Millicent Rogers

Millicent, photo taken in 1947 for Harper's Bazarre.

b.1902

d.1953

This gorgeous and classy lady lived a short, but sweet life ending it in Taos, New Mexico. She had with rheumatic fever as a child and was sadly in frail health throughout her life.

Millicent didn't just consume style, but created it. Mary Millicent Rogers was an American beauty and fashion icon. A passion for life's aesthetic pleasures inspired a journey that led her to the beautiful and historic land of Taos, New Mexico.

Taos, with its scenic beauty and Native American culture helped fuel her creativity. She thought that the Southwestern Indian culture was a precious part of America's heritage that had to be recognized and preserved. Being so obsessed with collecting Native American jewelry, she actually started designing and learning to make her own. She was a huge influence in popularizing this rich culture; not only through her own jewelry creations, but through her lifetime collections of indigenous art. She loved fashion.

One of her sons, Arturo, said “M.R. really was the first hippie.”

Gorgeous Milly.

Her amazing home.

Some of the beautiful pieces Millicent designed.

The best parts of the museum were her illustrations of children's stories she made up for her three sons while she was sick in bed, and her letter she wrote. Right before her death she wrote her youngest son this amazing letter that expresses how much New Mexico meant to her and her spiritual connection to the mountains, air, and earth.

It reads:

Darling Paulie,

Did l ever tell you about the feeling I had a little while ago? Suddenly passing Taos Mountain I felt that I was part of the Earth, so that I felt the Sun on my Surface and the rain. I felt the Stars and the growth of the Moon, under me, rivers ran. And against me were the tides. The waters of rain sank into me. And I thought if I stretched out my hands they would be Earth and green would grow from me. And I knew that there was no reason to be lonely that one was everything, and Death was as easy as the rising sun and as calm and natural - that to be enfolded in Earth was not an end but part of oneself, part of every day and night that we lived, so that Being part of the Earth one was never alone. And all fear went out of me - with a great, good stillness and strength.

If anything should happen to me now, ever, just remember all this. I want to be buried in Taos with the wide sky - Life has been marvelous, all the experiences good and bad I have enjoyed, even pain and illness because out of it so many things were discovered. One has so little time to be still, to lie still and look at the Earth and the changing colours and the Forest - and the voices of people and clouds and light on water, smells and sound and music and the taste of wood smoke in the air.

Life is absolutely beautiful if one will disassociate oneself from noise and talk and live it according to one's inner light. Don't fool yourself more than you can help. Do what you want - do what you want knowingly. Anger is a curtain that people pull down over life so that they only see through it dimly - missing all the savor, the instincts - the delight - they feel safe only when they can down someone. And if one does that they end by being to many, more than one person, and life is dimmed - blotted and blurred! - I've had a most lovely life to myself - I've enjoyed it as thoroughly as it could be enjoyed. And when my time comes, no one is to feel that I have lost anything of it - or be too sorry - I've been in all of you - and will go on Being. So remember it peacefully - take all the good things that your life put there in your eyes - and they, your family, children, will see through your eyes. My love to all of you.

Artist: Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg's "White Painting"

b. 1925-d. 2008

Robert Rauschenberg studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor, often combining both medias. He also worked in photography, printmaking, paper making, and performance arts. Rauschenberg was quoted as saying that he wanted to work "in the gap between art and life." He questioned the distinction art objects and everyday objects.

Rauschenberg picked up trash and incorporated found objects such as newspapers, into his paintings, often beginning with quilts and other items as his canvases. He liked the surprise of the objects, and the transformation of the object by changing its context.

I love the series that Rauschenberg created in the 50's known as his "White Paintings." They were large panels of mostly layers of white paint. They were referred to as "airports for the shadows and for dust, but you could also say that they were mirrors of the air." I love the exploitation of white, and the bravery of calling pure white a work of art.

Rauschenberg was a brilliant artist in all formal terms. He had great compositions and use of space, color, texture and shapes. Look at the incredible use of hot neon pinks!

This is one of Rauschenberg's paintings I saw at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Pilgrim, 1950

Look at this work titled Pilgrim, that spills into the gallery. It was so strange stumbling across this image years after completing my installation. Weird, huh?

Canyon, 1959

Look at this mixed media. He uses a taxidermy bald eagle and a pillow hanging from the canvas. It's odd how mysterious and haunting, yet so incredibly beautiful his work can be.

Octave, 1960

Just one more example of his work. When he could not afford canvas, he simply took his quilt off his bed and use toothpaste, paint, and nail polish to create this piece. Here you can really see his choreography, improvisation, and the use of painting, sculpture, and everyday object.

Artist: Jessica Stockholder

On the Spending Money Tenderly, 2002
Untitled, 1996.

Jessica Stockholder was born in Seattle, Washington. She studied painting at University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and received an MFA from Yale. Her site specific installations have been described as "paintings in space." They incorporate the architecture in which they are in with the use of everyday objects such as plastic bags, extension cords, carpets, furniture, etc,. Jessica creates a narrative through placement of objects, paint, light, color, etc. She maps out a work of art with a keen and well-informed eye informed by numerous artistic traditions: abstract expressionism, color field painting, and minimalism.

I love her beautiful use of color, texture, and space and the incorporation of every day objects, taking full advantage of the natural color of items.

Your skin in This Weather Bourne Eye-Threads and Swollen Perfume, 1995

Untitled, 1990