Meditation on a Cottage Latch painting

The handle is worn, rusty, with flakes of paint. Pale blue highlights wiggle across the back plate. Rusty round headed screws mask the corners. Look at the original from an angle and you can see the iridescence sheen. More squiggles trace a line of the door jamb.

This handle has seen some history. Everything about it speaks of age. The peeling paint work on the door frame. The bolt for a latch looks like an afterthought or a ‘temporary fix ‘ when the original was broken. Maybe it was a design feature.? I don’t know but it makes me curious to find out. Pieces of ironwork, like this, have witnessed so much. Not as part of the events but as a backdrop. Like stage scenery to the everyday dramas that play out and make up our lives.

I often look at small details, like this, and wonder what tales they could tell if only they could speak?

As the latch was pressed and the person enters what were they feeling?

Was it with joy? Arriving home from school, work or a shopping trip? Coming home after a holiday or returning from fighting in a war?

Was there an anxiety as the door handle was gripped, a moment’s hesitation before the latch was pressed and the person entered? To face the music, apologise and make-up?

Or greet a situation that might fill them with dread.? An elderly parent who failed to answer a knock.

When you enter the world of this Cottage latch painting there are so many tales to tell,

So where would you begin?