Betty Lamp c. 1937

Gilbert Boese made this rendering of a Betty Lamp sometime between 1855 and 1995. You can see how the artist paid particular attention to the texture of the metal lamp, letting the light gray wash pool to create a feeling of depth. I wonder, as Boese worked, if they were thinking about light and dark, the way the lamp creates light by burning fuel in a dark room. I’m imagining them trying to capture the feeling of a dark room lit by this small lamp; its glow barely reaching the corners. There’s a lovely softness in their approach that allows the lamp to emerge gently from the page. The artist has included studies of the lamp in the top corners, offering different perspectives, like they were trying to solve a puzzle. Paintings like this remind me that we are all in conversation with each other across time. Each brushstroke, a whisper passed down from one artist to the next, building upon what came before. Painting is like a big, messy conversation, full of starts, stops, and sudden bursts of inspiration.