Airplane Trip 

Curator: This intriguing genre painting, simply called "Airplane Trip," appears to be the work of Norman Rockwell. It portrays a woman on a vintage airplane writing a letter, surrounded by all the trappings of early air travel. It's awash with lovely soft greens and the overall affect is quaintly affecting. Editor: Affecting is the word. I am struck by the almost exaggerated detail given to her writing hand; she is gripping that pen quite intensely! I find myself focusing on the very act of writing and I see how central is letter writing within her life. I wonder who is at the other end. Curator: Rockwell was always very interested in showing the mundane and the making-visible of these little unnoticed things, as you point out. Looking at it materially, the crisp delineation of form suggests possible work as an illustration or printed image. And while letter writing is the immediate narrative here, notice the careful articulation of details about modes of travel: this points us toward ideas about globalization and leisure and a very new age of tourism for a select demographic. Editor: Ah, exactly. Airplanes at that time had the connotation of the future, progress. See, in that period planes had huge symbolic resonance! Do you see the flowers on the hat? And also notice how that window is placed behind the head as an emblem, like a halo, and it’s written SKYWAY above—which evokes this ascent to heaven as well, the miracle of flight… She seems totally transformed to me by this experience of literally leaving terra firma. Curator: You read her hat as symbolic. I was noticing the floral embellishment as perhaps speaking more practically about labour and trade routes within flower commerce in the states and possibly to this person’s social class. Either way, the small detail points to an external material context we might further consider, whatever we read into her adornment. And thinking again about the writing material – we don't just have words, but paper, ink and its availability as tied to particular histories, technologies. Editor: Perhaps. I guess what stays with me is her determined gaze, fixed on a world beyond, captured perfectly in that fleeting moment. Curator: For me, I keep seeing how travel in its material history continues to connect and to alter labour globally, as it is the business of the contemporary experience. And, also, that flowers come from the earth. They speak of home, in the air or on land.