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Captain Olson. Sibling pride, my sister at Ronald McDonald House Charities Spain

/ antonioyrocinante / 3 Comments

Keeping families together while a child is hospitalized is an important task, and one that Ronald McDonald House Charities is dedicated to. They build houses next to children’s hospitals around the world so the family can stay -for free- as long as the child is in hospital.

My younger sister has worked at the Spanish operation for years, which led me to volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House of Chapel Hill while I studied for my PhD, and at the Neonatal unit’s Ronald McDonald Family Room at the La Paz Hospital in Madrid while I lived in Spain.

McDonald’s is the key and main sponsor of the organization, but not the only one. Recently, my sister convinced McDonald’s Spain’s advertising company to lean into the cause by creating an ad for the organization. The result could not be any better. Grab a box of tissues, block the next eight minutes of your day, and enjoy, you are welcome!

Ad Reinhardt, the victory of minimalism

/ antonioyrocinante / 1 Comment

One of the wonderful things of being in Madrid is that many interesting places are walking distance from home. If they are a bit farther away, I can always jump on a rental scooter, on a little motorbike, or a bicycle, if it’s harsh weather I can take public transportation like buses or metro. In a worst-case scenario, I can rent a car per hours. My dinosaur Land Rover cannot be legally parked downtown.

Recently I walked to the Fundación Juan March, which I have talked about before in this blog to see a great exhibit on Ad Reinhardt, a groundbreaking abstract American painter. The exhibit was split into two distinct areas: an area of his paintings showing his evolution into the purest minimalism (see the photo of the red painting) where a monochromatic canvas has only the most subtle color variations, mesmerizing!

The other part covers Reinhardt’s career as an illustrator, teacher, activist, and designer.

He also coined some evident but necessary phrases like

Art is Art. Everything else is everything else

Ad Reindhardt

or

Art is too serious to be taken seriously

Ad Reindhardt

If you get a chance to see the exhibit in Madrid, go now. If Madrid is not an option go check out his paintings at the Museum Folkwang Essen, SFMOMA in San Francisco, and of course the New York MOMA and the Met.