Inside Looking Out, Part II

Social distancing and quasi-quarantine measures continue and escalate. Virtually every operation in my studio building has come to a screeching halt, which means that I am usually the only one there--certainly the only person on the 2nd floor. While it seems entirely too quiet, it does feel relatively safe in terms of avoiding contact with others.  And so I continue to go in, and to gaze out the windows, and to paint what I see.

Looking, really looking, at these views is revelatory. Sometimes you have to do a lot of looking before you SEE. And SEEING is the most important skill of a perceptual painter. It is a lifetime's work.  That may all sound like voodoo, but it's not. (For the curious, I have written more about what it means to "see" here).

I'm illustrating this post with a painting of an apartment building across the street from my studio. I have looked at it thousands of times, and I love the way the stark whiteness of it reflects nice light into my space. But until I started to paint it, I had not really SEEN it.

"White Apartment Building"
8 x 12, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2020

When I finally tuned into it and received the visual information it was providing, I realized that the facades of the different wings reflect light differently, and as a result appear different shades of white. I realized that, from my altitude, the flat roof presents an interesting oblique shape. The most startling realization was that the facade with the central door is curved. Yes, curved--it is concave! How could I have failed to see that before?? It was not until the conclusion of the painting session, when I had watched the shadow shapes change with the movement of the sun, that I figured out why they were changing the way they were--that that the changes were due to the curve of the wall.

And so, I will never look at that building the same. I treasure this little painting for the way it helped teach me to SEE!