Glass c. 1938

Curator: Here we have "Glass," a watercolor, pencil, and drawing piece made around 1938 by Janet Riza. Editor: Oh, it’s delicate! It's just this swirling dream of pink candy cane captured in a translucent vase. Curator: It’s interesting to consider the multiple mediums employed to render one of the oldest manufactured materials. Look closely and you’ll note the blue hue in the stem—it provides an interesting counterpoint to the swirled pink and red in the vase. Editor: Almost like capturing breath, isn't it? The pink is so light, it's airy. Does anyone even use glass like this anymore? It reminds me of a bygone era. The scale is just...right. Curator: Indeed. Now, thinking about craft and labor... these techniques can tell us so much about the time period in which an artist worked. Watercolor lends itself well to capturing light and transparency. I would be curious about Riza’s process here. Editor: It makes you think, doesn’t it? This wasn’t just a vase to Riza; it was a moment, a whisper of something ephemeral that she desperately wanted to hold onto, the delicate dance between light and shadow, permanence and change... that sounds dramatic, I know. Curator: Not at all. The transparency of the watercolor perfectly captures the fragility of the glass itself and perhaps reflects on our relationship with fleeting beauty and the value we place on it, both tangible and not. Editor: I see echoes of those glass blowers, forever twirling their molten globs and in contrast Riza in her studio, painstakingly trying to freeze it. Is she just studying the properties of light reflected through manufactured material or is something more personal and emotional bubbling to the surface? Curator: Good question. One I don’t think there’s an easy answer for but regardless, I can look at this simple piece in a whole new way now. Editor: Me too! It's less about what is physically present and more about how Riza captured the memory of light, form, and color. Thanks for chatting with me about this.