"The best things in life happen to you when you’re alone." Agnes Martin Abstract-expressionist painter Agnes Martin could be said to have done for modern art what composer John Cage has done for music. Taken with the lectures of Japanese Zen Buddhist scholar D. T. Suzuki, Martin brought to her work a secular interest in Buddhist thought and its principles of pure presence and direct expression, reflected in her signature grids and minimalist, ethereal geometric drawings. Though she never analyzed her own work explicitly on the public record, the ethos at its heart is perhaps best captured obliquely, through Martin’s famous comment about the painter Mark Rothko, whom she applauded for having “reached zero so that nothing could stand in the way of truth.” ... [http://thereconstructionists.org/post/39839743090/agnes-martin] Also: http://storyboard.tumblr.com/post/41698890843/the-reconstructionists-celebrating-badass-women