Side Altar, San Luis Rey Mission 1941

William Kieckhofel made this delicate watercolor of the Side Altar at the San Luis Rey Mission. He used precise lines and translucent washes, building up the image layer by layer. It gives me the feeling that art-making is a patient, devotional act. Look at how Kieckhofel renders the texture of the walls, that mottled surface really gives a sense of the place. The blues, reds and greens feel very true to my memories of that part of California. I love the little flourishes, like the decorative flourishes on the altar itself and the almost cartoonish lions above. Kieckhofel seems interested in something beyond pure representation here, he is building a picture as an act of personal devotion. Thinking about this piece, I am reminded of the architectural drawings of Charles Demuth, another artist who found a sense of the monumental in the everyday. Art is always a conversation, an ongoing dialogue of seeing and responding!