Shoe Blacking Bottle c. 1937

Charles Garjian's "Shoe Blacking Bottle" is made with humble materials, pencil and watercolor on paper. I can imagine Garjian carefully observing the way light plays on the glass, the subtle gradations of tone. There's a tenderness in the way he captures the simple form of the bottle, as if finding beauty in the everyday object, elevating the mundane. It makes me think about Giorgio Morandi, who spent his life painting bottles. Did Garjian labor over the drawing or was it quickly executed? What was he hoping to express? When I look closely I can see these ghostly marks, a memory of the artist's hand at work. And as a painter, that really speaks to me. We are all in conversation with each other, artists from different times and places, drawn to similar subjects, inspired by the same desire to capture the world around us.