Paper Windows

The Lace Maker, Caspar Netscher, 1662

The Lace Maker

I know her. Or she knows me. We kick off our shoes the minute we enter the studio. The instant. We work in the corner, facing the wall. On hers is a ragged print of a landscape, a controlled window, and on mine there are many more of exactly that. Her head appears to tip down, but I think we caught her in a pause, glancing up. She realized something. Her hands froze in a flash, and her gaze shifted upward just a little. Just a bit. She looks into that mid-space that is really like looking into the world, when all of the light entering our eyes bounces and scatters unnoticed and without focus. The making of sense. In a moment she will look up at the print, at that soft roll of hill. Everything in the world will be different when she returns to her careful knots of lace. Everything in the world.