Little West 12th Street c. 1945 - 1946

This is 'Little West 12th Street' by William Sharp. Imagine Sharp with his tools, scratching into the plate, finding his way. It’s like a dance, a conversation. He’s seeing something and trying to get it down, but in the process of getting it down, he sees something else, something new. I wonder what it was like for him standing on Little West 12th street, looking at the workers on the street and the ships looming behind the buildings. Did he know what he was looking for? Maybe it was like glimpsing a world within a world, noticing how the ordinary and the extraordinary bump up against each other. I love to imagine the exchange of ideas between artists, even across time, all of us searching for something that feels true, feels real, and trying to make it visible for others. Ultimately, art making is about embracing uncertainty. There's no one right way to see this image, just a lot of different ways.