Artist Anne LaFond is the founder and one of the current artists-in-residence at Window Studio. She paints people's portraits in such a way that passersby can watch her at work, as well as come in to talk about it. In addition to commissioned portraits, she is developing a series of larger paintings that incorporate aspects of the sitter's personal history and broader issues of life in the neighborhood and our times, often utilizing reflections in windows to do so. Inside/Out: Portrait of Griffin (2014) and Plenty: Portrait of Will (0213) are the first of these paintings. And the interactions she has had with the people who stop in to Window Studio are an important part of the picture, chronicled in the blog Pictures in Words.
"I’ve found that there are few opportunities in most people’s daily lives to experience art, but that whenever I have worked in a public space, people have been interested and eager to engage with it. Still, I never would have imagined how exciting the dynamic at Window Studio would become! I’ve seen how requesting a portrait and watching it completed is a powerful assertion of both personal and class confidence."
America (Anne LaFond, 2015)
