Skating at Boston 1859

Curator: Ah, Winslow Homer's "Skating at Boston" from 1859, held here at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The whole scene, rendered so vividly despite being just a wood engraving, practically makes me feel the chill air on my cheeks! Editor: Brisk! And somewhat clumsy? There's a delightful tension between the supposed gentility of the figures and the almost comical frozen postures, and near spills happening across the ice. The labor that goes into something like this - I wonder how many hands touched this very piece, reproducing this image for newsprint? Curator: A collaboration, absolutely! I see it as capturing a joyous moment, a burst of winter revelry. The artist invites us to relish in the simple pleasure of communal skating, you can almost hear the laughter! Did he skate as a kid, I wonder, that Winslow? Editor: The appeal is very interesting - you consider how carefully each line had to be cut into the woodblock, painstakingly transferring the design to be mass produced, in its original context distributed across thousands of pages in Harpers Weekly. These would’ve been discarded pretty quickly as newspapers, until Homer became iconic. Curator: True, the accessibility! A far cry from exclusive gallery walls. I think this touches upon Homer's understanding of storytelling – it is about making something intimate accessible to a larger audience, he's one of those folksy but serious at the same time personalities, don't you think? He lets us look, and he trusts us to fill the blanks, and, heck, make the moment feel real again. Editor: It certainly speaks to a certain democratizing effect, and consider the materials themselves—paper, ink, wood, widely available, used daily in commerce and governance. "High" art becomes tethered to daily life, bound together, made available. I think there is a beauty to consider the labor, access and dispersal! Curator: It makes one see it not as a mere historical snapshot, but a perennial testament to the small beauties of daily life and playfulness, even as ephemeral news print of the day. It’s also this curious alchemy when art becomes valuable that also once was accessible. It goes full circle, does it? Editor: Indeed. Something to remember as we return to our regularly scheduled digital broadcast. But maybe it does have some lingering influence, Winslow!