Usually, when I look out this window next to my drawing table, the fire escape somehow disappears. All I focus on are the kids on the playground arcing the ball toward the basketball hoop. But now, six weeks into studio isolation, the bars on the fire escape have an inescapable physical presence, and the kids no presence at all. Weirdly, as I painted this scene, the bars made this mundane streetscape on West 90th more and more beautiful to me.
