Flint Glass Bottles c. 1936

Editor: This is "Flint Glass Bottles," a drawing made around 1936. The artist is Ella Josephine Sterling. It seems to be a delicate watercolour, and what strikes me most are the decorative, almost folk-arty designs on the bottles themselves. How do you interpret the imagery on these bottles? Curator: The choice of glass bottles, ordinary objects elevated by decorative painting, evokes powerful cultural symbols. Glass itself is both fragile and enduring, like memory. Notice the motifs: florals and a bird. Flowers, across cultures, are tied to ideas of beauty, transience, and even mourning. The bird… what does a bird suggest to you? Editor: Freedom? A messenger? Curator: Precisely. Birds are often seen as conduits between the earthly and spiritual realms, carrying prayers or souls. Together, the bird and flowers, rendered in this almost naive style, suggest a yearning for something beautiful, perhaps even a lost simplicity. Does the palette used strike you in any way? Editor: It’s quite muted, not overly vibrant. It feels a little wistful. Curator: Exactly. The faded colors amplify the sense of memory. The painting, then, becomes more than a simple still life. It’s a vessel filled with cultural longing. The bottles become containers not just for liquids, but for shared experiences, lost traditions. Editor: I see that now, like they hold little stories within the glass. Thank you. Curator: Indeed. And each time we view it, the piece shares the artist’s memory, and offers us space for our own reflection.