I think today is an appropriate day to share a recent trip I took to Stockbridge with my dad. My dad had gone up there for his birthday last year and sent me about 50 photos on his phone, pretty much every painting and illustration he came across. All he has wanted to do for the past year is take me up there to experience it with him.
When we got up there it was warm and pretty overcast, which of course I love. We went through the museum and watched a video of Norman Rockwell's life. Getting to see his pieces like The Gossips and Freedom of Speech in person was really special. Seeing all of the prints of the Saturday Evening Post lined up was inspiring. One person did all of that work. It gave me a little bit of anxiety thinking about all of those hundreds of deadlines, haha. The amount of detail that you can see in his work is absolutely amazing. It's inspiring and intimidating all at once.
We also got to see his actual studio that was picked up and moved from the center of town to a quiet little patch of land behind the museum. Everything was still intact. It was beautiful. We learned about his process and how you can spot it in some of his work. For instance in The Marriage Counselor you can see that he used models in his studio as reference because it is the exact same couch from his studio, just in a different color, and the books in the marriage counselor's office are all art books which actually exist on the bookshelf next to his couch in his studio. Something I'm sure not a lot of people have noticed while looking at that illustration. His studio was spotless, which if you're an artist you know that isn't realistic, but in this case that is how he kept his space. No paint on the floor, everything in it's place at all times.
After we left the museum we found a cute little restaurant in a neighboring town for dinner. It was a perfect day with dad.
Happy Father's Day to all of the amazing, hardworking, caring dads out there!
xx
