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A familiar studio object becomes a vessel for memory and sentiment
In Ball Jar with Pencils (1987) I finally understood why that simple arrangement sat on my studio table for months. I used the pencils every day, but my attachment to them — and to the Ball canning jar — ran deeper than routine. The yellow sharpened pencils carried me back to childhood classrooms, to the clean erasers and the sense of readiness they symbolized. And the canning jar had been a quiet icon throughout my life, tied to the people and places that shaped me.
That realization changed how I saw the objects. The highlights and reflections on the glass surface weren’t just technical challenges; they were a way of acknowledging the emotional weight these ordinary things held. The jar sits alone in the composition, but it doesn’t feel empty. It holds memory, familiarity, and the quiet persistence of objects that stay with us long after we stop noticing them.
The painting became a meditation on why certain things remain in our orbit — not because they’re useful, but because they’re part of our story.
Dimensions: 12″ × 15″
Medium: Watercolor
A familiar studio object becomes a vessel for memory and sentiment
In Ball Jar with Pencils (1987) I finally understood why that simple arrangement sat on my studio table for months. I used the pencils every day, but my attachment to them — and to the Ball canning jar — ran deeper than routine. The yellow sharpened pencils carried me back to childhood classrooms, to the clean erasers and the sense of readiness they symbolized. And the canning jar had been a quiet icon throughout my life, tied to the people and places that shaped me.
That realization changed how I saw the objects. The highlights and reflections on the glass surface weren’t just technical challenges; they were a way of acknowledging the emotional weight these ordinary things held. The jar sits alone in the composition, but it doesn’t feel empty. It holds memory, familiarity, and the quiet persistence of objects that stay with us long after we stop noticing them.
The painting became a meditation on why certain things remain in our orbit — not because they’re useful, but because they’re part of our story.
Dimensions: 12″ × 15″
Medium: Watercolor