Roundout Creek c. late 1930s

Betty Waldo Parish made this print of Roundout Creek, and it's got this really interesting, kind of somber, black-and-white palette. You can almost feel her hand moving across the plate, etching those lines, making marks, and slowly, this scene emerges. It makes me think about the artist, Parish, and what it must have been like, standing there, looking at this creek. The smokestack, the industrial buildings and the river. I see all those little houses stacked up. The water is so still you can see reflections. Those marks she made – they're not just describing what she saw, but also what she felt. I see the way the light flickers on the surface of the water, created by tiny lines, almost like she's shivering, she is trying to capture that feeling. It reminds me of some of the early American modernists, artists like the Ashcan School painters, who were also interested in depicting everyday life, not always pretty, not always perfect, but real. That’s what makes you look, keeps you looking.