Churn c. 1938

John Tarantino, who lived to be quite an age, made this watercolor, entitled ‘Churn,’ which pictures a ceramic pot with a cobalt blue eagle splashed across its belly. I like to imagine Tarantino, an artist so devoted to his craft that he painted well into his golden years, carefully rendering this American object. The watery, loose quality of the watercolor gives the sturdy cylinder a ghostliness, as if the artist were contemplating not just an object but an idea. The original pot might have been heavy, cool, and functional, but Tarantino’s painting transforms this utilitarian object into something ethereal. The cobalt blue is applied in such a way that it feels almost alive, as if the artist wanted to animate the past. Painting is often a conversation, a back-and-forth between the artist and the subject, between tradition and invention. Here, Tarantino is echoing the craft of the potter, but with a light, impressionistic touch all his own. In this way, art-making is an act of remembering, a kind of churning of images across time.