Mision San Luis Obispo 1935 - 1942

James Jones made this drawing of Mission San Luis Obispo in muted greys, with what looks like a graphite stick on paper. There’s a real sense of this building, but it’s flattened out, like a cardboard cut-out, or an architectural plan. You know, I really feel for artists tackling architecture; it’s so hard to make it breathe, to get it off the ground, to stop it from feeling static. I wonder if Jones was thinking of the bricks when he made this, each one a tiny mark, laid down with intention, building up to the whole. Or maybe the light outside the building. The cross on top is so simple, just two lines, but it gives the whole structure meaning. I think that the graphic quality makes it really special. It reminds me of other artists who take buildings or words and make them into symbols. The way the shadow is rendered; it all has a feeling of a sign or a symbol or something in a dream. And like any good piece of art, it leaves you wondering, you know? It inspires your creativity to consider the possibilities, the maybes, and to dream about what could be.