A Very Old Bottle

I love glass bottles, the older the better and this bottle is one of my favorites. I love this bottle. I'm not even sure where or when it first made an appearance in my life, but I think it might have been while in our last home. When we moved in, the attic was full of the debris of numerous past lives, some of it junk and some of it valuable, like the ornate Eastlake fainting couch that we used in our library for many years until we sold it to another antiques collector. I personally prefer the mundane things, the little everyday items that were used and never thought much of, like the broken dishes and bottles we dig up every so often on our property while working, and the dusty odds and ends that turn up in the corners of musty old attics and cellars. I think this bottle was found dirty and forgotten on a shelf until I picked it up and wiped it off and saw the amazing rainbow of colors it presented when held up to the light, its brown appearance deceptive at first glance. I have been keeping it safe ever since.

Oddly enough, I have never painted or drawn it in color until now. I have some charcoal and pencil sketches of it done through the years, but nothing that even remotely hints at the amazing display of color when light passes through it. I'm not sure why I've never done this, but until now I hadn't. Go figure. Maybe this week I just felt I needed a bit more light in my rather dark life and pulled out my lovely brown bottle, the one who has waited patiently all these years to be presented to the world at long last in all its multi-hued glory.

Brown Bottle in Sunlight, pastel on paper, 2009.