SKETCHBOOK | A Visual Journal
WINDOWS | November 2021
I recently embarked on a mission to paint all my favorite windows. Before I begin to explain what a mammoth undertaking that would be — a folder on my phone’s ‘Photos’ app titled ‘Favorite Windows’ has in just a few years accumulated hundreds of photos — I’ll take a moment to explain the obsession.
To me, a window is (forgive me) a window into the fabric of a city. It is the truest and most vulnerable element of a building, serving as a marker of architectural significance but also a signal of the life that is unfurling just behind the panes. It does more than just define an architectural era. It provides light to apartment complexes bustling with families, a church’s congregation, a diner’s patrons, and — in some cases — no one.
My ‘Favorite Windows’ are of course those that have intrigued me visually: the gothic windows of Barcelona, for instance, or the ogee windows of Cairo. But I’ve also noted windows far less ornate, ones that are part of a building that I might walk by every day in New York, whose friendly, familiar residents make it meaningful.
