The Airstream represented my studio. The only studio I’ve ever had. It was my companion on this Visiting Artist adventure. It didn’t move; it provided interesting beauty and it greeted me every day, with it’s shiny body and mysterious black letters and numbers on its side.
I connected it, somehow to the gold post-it note that I found folded under a jar of sunflowers, chrysanthemums and strawflowers on my windowsill in the apartment bedroom which was also mine for the week. The post-it said:
So black with
scratches
maybe some
writing too?
No one else in the apartment had flowers in her room; no one else found a mysterious note, and almost no one else had the Airstream. Almost, because one of my apartment mates shared the studio with me, but she had a different window, different view, and she didn’t seem to be obsessed with it the way I was. She was actually writing, not gazing out the window!
This is my photograph on the first morning I spent time in the studio. I instinctively photograph the view from my window whenever I’m in a new place, and at this point, I did it out of habit and because I was intrigued with this industrial landscape which, for a week, would replace my usual view out to flowers, shrubs, an old willow tree and birds at my feeder. I also noticed the clouds, the water flowing below in the canal and loved the bright touch of yellow on the side rails of the bridge across which many small maintenance vehicles and occasional cars would drive throughout the day.
This was my view. I was hooked.
