Warming Pan 1935 - 1942

Florence Stevenson made this 'Warming Pan' painting; it's a muted watercolor on paper that seems to capture the object in various states of presentation. I can imagine her looking closely at the warming pan, trying to understand how it was made, how the light hits it, and how its materials come together. The rendering isn't overly realistic. The colors are fairly matte, and she lets the marks be fairly visible. It’s like she's using the watercolor to take notes, diagramming the pan as an ode to the maker. There are some interesting shifts in perspective, and the wood handle is given as much attention as the decorative rooster on the pan lid. What might she have been thinking when she made this? Was she thinking about how the warming pan warmed a bed? About the life it had in someone’s home? I love how Stevenson sees this pan, not just as an object, but as a form of embodied expression and memory.