This week my main focus was on getting a vaccination, and it was a wild ride. I’d signed up in my home state of Texas, hoping I might get a spot since a lot of folks are disinterested in the vaccine there. After several weeks of waiting, I was offered a J&J appointment, so I took it, made flight arrangements, but three days before I was set to go, the CDC took J&J off the shelves to research adverse reactions in the form of major clotting events. At this point, I had a flight, hotel, and car booked, so I figured I’d better find an alternative. Fortunately, I received an update that I’d be getting Pfizer. Unfortunately, I hadn’t budgeted for three weeks and a second shot, so I'm personally taking it upon myself to use the UK’s strategy of prolonging second doses out of sheer necessity. If I’m lucky, the Netherlands will have its vaccination act together (looks like I’ll have to be very very lucky at the rate they’re going) and I’ll be able to get a second shot in June. Or maybe I’ll have to wait until I’m in Chicago in July. Who knows? I’ve given up on any kind of certainty over the last year.
On the bright side, Houston, unlike Amsterdam, was open for business and offered lots of fun while everyone remained fully masked. I enjoyed a full time taco diet, homemade black walnut ice cream, and world class fine art. I took the opportunity between vaccination and PCR testing to visit the Rothko Chapel and Menil Collection, both of which were wonderful excursions, and the local parks offered decent wildlife spotting thrown in with a little exercise. It was nice to be back in Texas for a minute, and made me miss the place. I tried to draw and do a little project planning, but getting more familiar with Cy Twombly and seeing Mark Rothko’s art during my first museum visit in well over a year, offered a needed injection of inspiration and new ways to think about painting. It was especially wonderful to see Rothko’s work since I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it during the generative painting process.
Mark Rothko, Plum and Brown, 1956 | At the Menil Collection, 20210416