Glass Celery Dish c. 1937

This is Beulah Bradleigh’s watercolor of a glass celery dish. Isn’t it funny how the most quotidian objects become icons through art? The palette is so subtle, mostly whites and grays with pale blues and lavenders that give a luminous quality to the glass. I imagine Bradleigh carefully layering each wash, letting the colors mix and mingle on the paper. Each stroke feels considered, as if she’s trying to capture the essence of light itself. I wonder what she was thinking about as she painted this? Maybe she was contemplating the play of light on the glass, or the way the simple dish could become something beautiful and precious through the act of painting. It reminds me that painting is just another way of seeing, and that every artist is in conversation with every other artist, always trying to find new ways to capture the world around them. It feels like a conversation I want to be a part of too.