A couple months ago, I was scheduled to attend the ACC show in Baltimore, and my husband and I made a decision that now feels essential in hindsight. We flew out early to Washington, DC and committed to a two-day, full-speed, no-regrets cultural blitz.
He wanted history. I wanted art. So naturally, we did everything.
Our agenda was packed to a level that would make most people reconsider their life choices. Monuments, museums, walking until our feet protested, then walking more. And somewhere inside that whirlwind of inspiration, one space quietly stood above the rest for me.
Housed in what was once the private home of Duncan Phillips, the Phillips Collection museum still carries that residential soul. It was one of the first museums of modern art in the United States, but it does not feel institutional. It feels personal, almost like being invited into someone’s home who happens to have extraordinary taste.
Each room unfolds quietly into the next, intimate in scale, thoughtfully arranged, and deeply considered. It immediately reminded me of The Barnes Foundation, where placement, proximity, and dialogue between works matter just as much as the works themselves.
And then there was the Rothko room.
Mark Rothko has always been one of my favorite painters, so standing in a small room surrounded by his work felt like a quiet thrill. I have long been drawn to his large, color-saturated canvases, and seeing them in person, scaled so boldly within such an intimate space, was completely immersive.
Standing there, I could clearly see how his work has influenced my own. His saturated blocks of color, quietly interacting at their edges, mirror the way I approach inlay, where each stone is chosen not just for itself, but for how it lives beside another.
There is something about experiencing color at that scale, in that kind of stillness, that shifts how you understand composition entirely. It becomes less about what you see and more about what you feel, much like the way people are drawn to a piece of jewelry, not because they can justify it, but because it resonates.
Ready to find color that resonates?
Explore jewelry by color, shop inlay pieces that bring color relationships to life, or continue the story with my related piece, Painting with Stones: How Museums Still Shape My Jewelry, along with reflections on The Barnes Foundation.