quartersawn oak · graphite on rag · north stair landing
cut from a single board of english oak, mitred badly at one corner — you can see the gap if you tilt your head. the joiner had a head cold and a deadline. it has held the same small drawing for thirty-one years and will, by every indication, hold it for thirty-one more.
the drawing is a bowl, a pear, a faint line where a table edge is implied. a child signed it l.b. and gave it to her grandfather. the grandfather framed it the same week. the bowl in the drawing is the bowl in the kitchen, still in use, slightly more chipped now. the pear came from the garden, from the tree that no longer fruits.
it hangs above the landing between flights. you pass it twice a day if you live here; you can describe it from memory after a week.
field-note the most-looked-at picture in the house is also the one nobody remembers having looked at.