Today was my final day in NYC and I saved the best for last – a visit to MOMA (Museum of Modern Art).

Came across a few of Picasso’s works – amazing what a variety of styles he had and he was so brilliant in each of these.

I also saw this original Red Room from Matisse – I remember when I was still in High School – we had to choose an artist’s style to copy and I chose this particular painting of his to do my own interpretation of my Blue Room.

Another favourite artist of mine is Mark Rothko – these oversized canvases – with it’s divine choice of colours…

I’m inspired to paint one of these to liven up the bare wall in our Lounge…

Today we took a drive up north to the city of Beacon, about 60 miles north of NYC where the Dia:Beacon gallery is situated. A 1920’s concrete, glass and steel factory housing permanent collections from artists like Louise Bourgeois, Andy Warhol, Richard Serra and many more, particularly artworks that could not be accommodated by conventional museums.

One artists work which I found most inspiring was Sol LeWitt’s Drawing Series which is a body of work dating back to the 1970’s and which was installed in the gallery in 2006.

His work is the simple use of pencil lines – drawn at different angles and weights creating various shades of grey by simply overlaying and repeating. From a distance these walls which stretch about 8m wide by 6m high seemed to have different tints of flat grey blocks painted on them – but as you move closer you realise each of these blocks consist of smaller blocks with lines drawn meticulously 5mm apart, line after line after line…

I felt the work to have an amazingly calming effect within it’s mathematical precision.

After 4 hours of absorbing art, concepts and space – it was time for a bite to eat…

What better way to finish off our afternoon in Beacon than at a local diner, The Whistling Willy, for some true American Style burgers. ;)