Christopher Cartmill/Edward Hopper

Professor Christopher Cartmill’s presentation on Edward Hopper was nothing short of inspiring. If anything it prompted me to stay present in the moment and recognize how easy it is to slip into either the past or the future. The exercise which he conducted in front of the class, taking one of Hoppers paintings and constructing two completely separate scenes yet maintain inspiration from the single painting was absolutely imaginative. Professors are always encouraging their students to think outside of the box but they so rarely do so themselves which is why Professor Cartmill’s presentation was so unique. He really pushed himself to draw outside of the lines and in doing so he brought the essence behind Edwards Hopper’s paintings alive.

Although I have seen the more well known paintings of Edward Hopper, such as “Gas 1940’ and ‘Morgensonne, 1952’, I have never really known the background behind his work. As pleasing as his art is to the eye, I found his work to be all the more interesting after discovering just how objective Hopper invites his audience to be. Unlike most artists Hopper does not seem to have a point of view which he is trying to convey with his work. Instead he paints with obvious passion and appreciation for color and light but he does something much more interesting than most: he invites the viewer to create their own back story for the painting. His work encourages the viewer to be just as creative and imaginative as he himself has been in creating the painting.

After this presentation in class I was inspired to create a dialogue which I imagined merely from a scene which I saw through a city street window. As I began to write my own dialogue I rediscovered the simple pleasure of objectivity. Instead of feeling pressure to capture the “right” dialogue that would adequately recreate the scene which I had viewed through the window I felt free to explore my imagination and follow it to where ever it wanted to take me. In an attempt to honor the work which Professor Catmill presented in class I was determined to take my new found respect for living in the moment and somehow translate it into my final project for ‘Life on the Square’. In doing so I came up with the idea to create a time capsule that could potentially be buried in Washington Square Park. My hope and desire is to create a time capsule that effectively captures what life on the square in the spring of 2008 was really like, in essence capture just a small piece of history in time.