Choir Rail 1938

Josephine Romano made this design for a Choir Rail using what looks like watercolor on paper. I can imagine her at her desk, thinking about the shapes and forms that make up the choir rail, how each vertical post is like a slightly different note in a chord. The careful rendering of the wood grain, and the way she painted the shadows, gives the whole thing a solid, three-dimensional feel. It reminds me a bit of Wayne Thiebaud's paintings of cakes and pies, in that both artists have this way of making ordinary objects seem kind of monumental. The flat, almost cartoonish rendering of the rail is so charming. I bet she was thinking about the tradition of architectural drawing, but also trying to bring her own sensibility to it, her own way of seeing the world. In a way, every artist is in conversation with the artists who came before them, building on their ideas, challenging them, and adding their own voice to the mix. It's a never-ending process of exchange and inspiration, and I find that really exciting.