Hardware Shop Sign 1937

Alice Stearns made this semi-circular watercolour of tools at the hardware shop sometime during her long life. The way the light falls on the hatchet and handsaw, you get a sense of how she builds the image, piece by piece. I can imagine Alice there in the hardware store, sketching each tool individually, thinking about its function, and then arranging them all together into this composition. All of those hours looking, the careful building of her image. The final work feels like it's about paying attention to the world. These tools are all rendered in earth tones, like she wants to evoke the wood they're made from, or the soil that produced the iron ore for the metal parts. There's a softness to her treatment that makes the tools feel approachable, like objects that we can use to build our own homes and lives. You can feel the human hand in the creation, both in the making of the original objects and in the painting. Alice’s work has a strong connection with the American folk art tradition, showing how artists communicate ideas across time, inspiring each other’s creativity.