Town Window, Acrylic Painting and Thinking Back to a Weird Day at Work

Cheery sunlit brick and stucco buildings, constructed late 1800s-early 1900s. Pecan tree overhanging. Old doors!

Town Window acrylic on wood 24"x30"

This is a painting I made in spring 2021 and it's one of the largest paintings I have made to date. As much as I love to create art, I still have a day job to pay the bills.

During the time I was painting Town Window, I was also working on a job in Austin, Texas. It was a new construction job, and my company was there during the final phase of work, completing start-up and finishing touches. Our area consisted of 2 adjacent freezers with a long attached anteroom that had doors on both ends and one door to each freezer.

All of the other trades were done and the only other people on site that day were the customer's inspection crew. It was a small group of 3 or 4 people who were walking all around the building, quietly completing their tasks.

Before we started up the freezers, I was working inside one of the cells, finishing some trim. I was working on the floor, facing the door, which was open, and I saw one of the people I recognized from the other crew walk past the cell I was in, presumably checking over our work.

I didn't think much of it, and kept working, waiting to hear the familar metal-on-metal sound of the heavy door open and close.

Funny thing is, I never heard any door and I didn't see them walk past my freezer again. It was like they vanished or never even walked into the anteroom. But I know I saw them walk past the cell I was in! It wasn't my supervisor, he was on the roof, and no other people were on site besides the inspection crew.

There were a couple of other small, strange anomalies on that job site, but thankfully we got it all done, wrapped up the paperwork and left Austin. I'm not claiming that place was haunted, but--I'm telling you, it was a little weird.

Reference picture taken by the artist; iPhone 8 Plus

Old buildings, like in this Town Window painting, are fascinating to me. Imagine the stories they'd tell if they could talk. Sometimes, even new buildings have stories :p

Process

Do you have an interest in old stuff? Why?
Have you ever experienced something you couldn't explain?

Thanks for reading! 📚

Until next time,
-S