Side Altar, San Luis Rey Mission 1941

William Kieckhofel made this watercolor painting of a side altar in the San Luis Rey Mission, but when, exactly? It feels like one of those architectural renderings, but looser, with a kind of naive charm. I can imagine him there, squinting, trying to capture the light playing off those columns, the cool shadows, the slightly off-kilter symmetry. Did he labor over the details, the tiny angels in the arch, or did he let his hand flow, trusting the watercolors to do their thing? Look at how the blue seeps into the white, creating these soft, dreamy edges. It's not photorealistic, but it's got this lovely, almost wistful quality. He’s working in a tradition of artists documenting places – a kind of record keeping. It’s a dialogue across time, each artist building on what came before, inspiring what comes next. And that's what painting is, right? An ongoing conversation, a way of seeing and feeling, translated into marks and colors. It's a messy, beautiful, never-ending process.