When she was younger, Allison Moorer used to believe that she wanted an intellectual existence, a life of the mind. But now, at 42, she sighs, “What I’ve realized that I have is a life of the hands—I’m always just making something, or I’m writing or drawing something, because it makes me feel connected; it makes me feel real. It’s the same way with music—I just want to make it.” Hence, her latest ambitious set, Down To Believing, which documents her recent split from her husband, Steve Earle, and even the motherly guilt she felt when their son John Henry, now four, was diagnosed with autism two years ago. Moorer will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new feature on her.
Moorer: Dominique and John de Menil commissioned abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko to create a suite of 14 canvases to hang in this specifically designed octagonal space, which is quietly situated within Houston’s museum district. It opened to the public in 1971, one year after Rothko’s death, to serve as a sanctuary and to neutrally bring together people of all faiths, to promote dialogue, human rights and social justice. The Rothko Chapel is one of the most peaceful places I have ever set foot in. The canvases may look like some sort of nothing, just almost blackness, if you don’t sit down, take time and take them in. I visited on an overcast day, but as I sat in the middle of this breathtakingly quiet and open space, the sun shone through the skylights and revealed to me five dead faces in the piece hanging in the middle of the three you see as you walk in. I then turned around and studied, for a minute, the ones directly behind me. I saw a spiritual journey, I saw the cycle of life, I saw anguish, questions, courage, a triptych about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and then calm. More importantly, I felt and thought about all of those things. I can’t tell you what art is. But I know it when I see it.
Video after the jump.
