Red School House Bank c. 1937

William O. Fletcher made this red school house bank, maybe as a painting, maybe as a proposal, but either way with great care. I’m drawn to the way the colour carries the form. The red is flat, chalky even, so the eye knows it's looking at the surface. The bank is built from colour, a foundation of pigment. Look at where the paint is smudged, or faded, and you realize the whole image could shift, change its meaning, the way our memories do. That little green cupola on the roof – it's so charming! And the way the windows are rendered, not quite symmetrical, with a slightly wobbly quality. It gives the building a handmade, almost naive feel, as if Fletcher is saying, “Here’s a bank, but it’s also a toy, a dream, something built with our own hands.” This reminds me a bit of Joseph Yoakum's landscapes, which are both real and totally imagined. It’s like Fletcher is reminding us that art, like memory, is always a construction.