I just realized I've painted the same window 47 times and I'm not done yet

I counted today while I was cleaning out my flat files and it's 47. Same window, same apartment, I've lived here three years and I just never get tired of the way the light hits that one corner of the frame around 4pm in winter. Sometimes it's the whole window, sometimes just the sill, sometimes it's basically abstract and you'd never know what it is until I tell you.

My mom called me while I was counting and she laughed and said "honey that's not a series, that's a problem" and honestly she might be right. But there's something about coming back to the same shape over and over that's the most honest painting I do. No pressure to be interesting, just me and the same damn window and what the light is doing today.

I'm gonna send her a photo of all 47 taped up on the floor and see what she says. Part of me wants to keep going until it's 100. Part of me thinks that's insane. Anyone else have the one subject they just never quit?

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Giulia Bruno·2mo

I love this and I'm also a little jealous. Repetition gets such a bad name, like it's a failure of imagination, but the opposite is true. To come back to the same window 47 times you have to look at it differently 47 times. That's not a problem, that's a method.

I work in print specifically because the multiple lets me test this. Same plate, different ink, different paper, different pressure, and suddenly it's not the same image at all. The thing itself doesn't change, but everything around it does, and that's where the content lives. Your window sounds like my plate.

Also your mom is wrong. Although my mother said something similar about my etchings once, so maybe it's a mom thing. Keep going. I want to hear about number 48.

Roman Petrak·2mo

The print thing is right. Editioning teaches you that. Same plate, fifty pulls, none of them identical once you start changing ink weight and paper. People who've never done multiples think repetition means you've run out of ideas. It's the opposite. It's how you actually learn a thing.

47 windows in three years. That's about fifteen a year. That's not a problem, that's a practice. The light only does that one thing once a day for a few months a year. You're just showing up for it.

I've got a chunk of granite I've been coming back to for six years. Still haven't found the end of it. Some shapes don't give themselves up in one pass.

Dani OkaforOP·2mo

okay the granite thing really got me. six years and still not done?? that's exactly it. people think coming back to the same subject means you ran dry but it's honestly the opposite, you just keep finding more in it. like the window taught me how to actually see light instead of just copying it, yknow? my mom's version of "that's a problem" is basically her version of a compliment at this point haha.

and you're so right about showing up for it. that 4pm light thing only lasts maybe an hour for a few months, so there's this urgency to it. if I miss it I have to wait a whole day. keeps me honest.

what is it about the granite that keeps pulling you back? is it the surface or the shape or just the way it sits in different light? I'm genuinely curious now.

Dani OkaforOP·2mo

oh the plate thing really lands, I never thought of it that way but it's exactly it. the window is my plate, I'm just pulling different proofs of it depending on the day and what the light's doing. and honestly the ones where you can't tell it's a window anymore are my favorite, those are the ones where the plate basically disappears and it's just color and edge.

and yeah my mom is wrong but she's also kind of right haha, she's watched me haul watercolor paper around for three years asking "again?" every single time. I think she gets it now though, last time she visited she stood at that window for like ten minutes at 4pm and then just said "okay yeah I see it" and that was basically a blessing.

what kind of print do you work in? relief or intaglio or what, I did a little litho in school and my hands were never steady enough for it, I have so much respect for anyone who can pull that off.

Ramesh Jha·2mo

Forty-seven times and still you are seeing something new? Then it is not the same window at all. In our tradition we paint the same fish, the same peacock, the same goddess, our whole life long. My mother painted a particular tulsi plant stand for fifty years and each one was different because the seasons change and the hands change and the heart changes. What others call repetition, we call devotion.

Your mother is kind to tease you, but I think she knows also. When we can sit with one subject so long, it is not that we have nothing else to say. It is that we have too much to say and only one shape can carry it. Keep painting your window ji. One day you will look at it and understand why you had to go back so many times. Sometimes the light is the thing. Sometimes the light is only showing you something else.

Mateo Serrano·2mo

my grandmother has one bowl pattern she's thrown since before i was born. same shape, same little dip in the rim, and every single one comes out different because the clay's wetter or her hands got older or she just decides that day it wants a different foot. i used to think it was conservative, you know, playing it safe. but now i get it. there's a freedom in not having to invent the thing every time, you just get to actually look at it.

fifty years of a tulsi plant stand. that's not stuck, that's the whole point of making anything.

Dani OkaforOP·2mo

okay first of all your grandmother sounds incredible and I want to see a bowl. second of all that's exactly it, the freedom thing. I think people assume repetition is a lack of imagination but it's actually the opposite, it's the one place you don't have to perform anything. you just show up and look.

and fifty years of a tulsi plant stand. FIFTY YEARS. that's not conservative that's the opposite of conservative, that's committing so hard to one thing you get to see how it changes with you instead of just chasing newness forever. I hope she never stops throwing them. honestly I hope my mom lives long enough to say the same thing about my windows that she said about... wait no, my mom said it's a problem haha. but maybe in twenty years she'll get it. probably not though, she's committed to the bit.

Dani OkaforOP·2mo

oh this made me tear up a little honestly. your mother painting the same tulsi plant stand for fifty years... fifty YEARS. that's not repetition, that's a whole relationship. I think that's exactly what I'm trying to do and didn't have the words for it. like the window isn't the subject, the light IS, and the window is just the frame I keep coming back to so I can actually see it.

I love that you call it devotion. I'm going to think about it that way now instead of my mom's "problem" lol. does your mother still paint it? is the tulsi stand still there? I want to know everything about this. 🙂