Plate - "Park Theatre, NY" c. 1936

This plate showing the "Park Theatre, NY" was made by Helmut Hiatt, who lived a good long life, from 1855 to 1995. It's amazing to me that someone could be born in the mid-19th century and live nearly to the end of the 20th! I imagine Hiatt turning the clay, feeling it slip and slide through their hands. And I wonder what they were thinking about as they painted this scene? What did the Park Theatre mean to them? How often had they visited? And were they thinking about art, or about dinner, or about a lover? The oak leaves and acorns around the edge are so precise. They remind me of a conversation between the wildness of nature and the constraints of making art. And the little figures in the park—it's almost like they're frozen in time, stuck in a loop, always walking towards the theater, or away from it. That's what art can do, I think. It can freeze a moment, but it can also keep it alive, so we can keep coming back to it, keep wondering, keep feeling.