Pitcher c. 1938

George Loughridge made this watercolor drawing of a pitcher, but we don't know exactly when. The neutral gray of the pitcher makes you wonder if it's stoneware, that utilitarian pottery we once all used daily. I can imagine Loughridge, maybe an amateur artist, carefully building up the form of the pitcher with thin washes, trying to get the curves just right. He's added these blue floral decorations – very simple, almost folk-arty. They must have been fun to paint amidst all that gray. It makes me think of other artists who find beauty in the everyday, like Giorgio Morandi, with his still lifes of bottles. What strikes me is the intimacy of looking so closely at a common object. It's almost like a form of meditation. And through that act of looking, the artist invites us to see the world with fresh eyes. It's a quiet conversation across time.