Playing In Traffic   Susan Jane Belton

I don’t remember what it wasabout the view out my car window or why I decided to paint “Call Box”, but theresult felt authentic.  At the time I wasoccupied with other projects in the studio, but this painting stayed with me,and I kept it on my studio wall. It harkened back to earlier bodies of work ofmine and it continued to intrigue me.

A few years ago, the citybegan digging up and replacing waterlines in the streets around my studio,creating odd and intriguing workarounds, from time to time I painted them whilestill occupied with other studio projects. So, when the Covid Pandemic shutdownhappened, these street subjects were already tugging for my attention.

As the pandemic wore on, Ispent lots of time walking outside, and lots of time looking inward where mythoughts swirled about world events, mortality, unpredictability and generalanxiety. The unprecedented events of the past couple of years left me wonderingwhat might emerge as the next frightening and invisible danger.

It was hard to make sense ofwhat exactly to do in the face of all this uncertainty, so continuing to showup at the studio and paint felt like a simple and doable act of faith. And itfelt natural for me to turn my view to objects in the streets.

For a long time, I have beenphotographing fire hydrants. I’ve always loved them and tend toanthropomorphize them, not in the same way as folks who paint faces on them,but more as stalwart soldiers and sentries who keep a lid on all that wonderfulstuff underground, ready to come to ones’ aid when needed.

On my walks I found myselfnoticing masses of plumbing appendages for fire hydrants, and crowds of orangetraffic cones, yellow caution tape, poles and barriers. Once you start noticingthem, they are everywhere.  They are setup to safely direct the traveler, but to me they’re more interesting and humanwhen their purpose is less clear, when they’ve been left behind, stored forlater, or poorly placed – more anthropomorphizing.  Some looked to me like troops massing formilitary maneuvers, or exhausted workers taking a break.

I found all these objects notonly amusing and visually interesting, but also poignantly suggestive of thisparticular moment in time. Painting these objects was a means of quietlysearching. I enjoyed the process of spending time with them and imagining thatI might come to “know” them.

Like primitive man perhaps, Iwas looking for “signs” and signals of meaning in everything I saw. I think atheme of the images I’ve been painting is fear of being a grown up. Who isgoing to protect us now, predict danger, steer us around catastrophe? It canfeel like we’re all “Waiting For Instructions”, and the task is to be quietlyoptimistic and open enough to understand the new directions. The work is aboutbeing alert, being able to change direction, map a path, and also about thecapriciousness of the whole enterprise.