Penny Bank c. 1938

Grace Halpin made this depiction of a 'Penny Bank' with watercolor. I wonder, did she have the actual penny bank in front of her? I can imagine her making the strokes with her brush, watching the colors bleed into one another. It’s like she’s chasing the object, trying to catch it just right. But it’s not about getting it perfect. It’s the trying that matters. The way she layers the blues and reds, it feels like she’s building up the form from the inside out. There's an innocence to the work. I wonder if she knew other painters, if she felt part of a conversation. It's easy for me to see the conversation now because painters are always riffing off each other, whether they know it or not. They keep the language of painting alive. Maybe she wanted to preserve something of the penny bank, of the world around her. Painting is a way of marking time, of saying, "I was here, I saw this." It's a simple act, but it can hold so much.