Wine Glass c. 1936

Janet Riza made this gorgeous drawing of a wine glass with what looks like colored pencil on paper. I love the transparency, the delicate washes of pale green, and the almost imperceptible shifts in tone that give it dimension. I wonder what it was like for Janet to create this? Perhaps they started with a light sketch, gradually building up layers of color to capture the glass. I imagine them squinting, carefully observing how light filtered through the glass and cast subtle shadows on the surface. You can see the light reflecting through the paper, and can imagine the artist capturing that in the image. The glass is not perfectly symmetrical. It has a wobble to it, and a hand-made feel. Painting is an embodied expression of not only what you are looking at but also how that looking makes you feel. Janet Riza had an exchange of ideas with the glass and the result is there on the page. It’s a gentle and joyful conversation between artist and object, and something new comes into being.