Friday the Thirteenth

Feeling a bit off kilter? Perhaps it's because today is Friday the thirteenth!

If so, you might feel right at home in Patssi Valdez's The Magic Room, where objects and patterns swirl furiously in a topsy-turvy room where two chairs float amidst bouncing balls and spilled drinks.

"My goal is to keep the paintings alive, to give them a sense of movement," Valdez says. "I want to evoke a feeling that people just left the room."

See The Magic Room in Texas at the El Paso Museum of Art until November 12, 2000 as part of our traveling exhibit Arte Latino: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Source: Andrew Connors. Arte Latino: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999).

Pictured: Patssi Valdez, born 1951, The Magic Room, 1994, acrylic, 96 x 119 5/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program.