Art needs people. People need art.

Noticing the quiet choreography between art and the people who show up to see it.

Oct 20, 2025

To stand before a Wayne Thiebaud cake painting, the icing so rich and thick it’s all I can do not to reach out and sneak a little taste with my finger. To feel Ruth Asawa’s ethereal wire forms capturing air and casting delicate shadows, barely there, yet commanding the room.

The work itself imparts an undeniable energy, yet the energy shifts subtly as people move throughout the room around me—each on their own journey. I’m always noticing how a viewer can unconsciously mirror what they’re seeing, taking on the pose, the palette, or the presence. The people become part of the experience. And this effect can be just as captivating as the work itself!

Life imitates art

I’m drawn to these small synchronicities when a viewer’s shape or color mirrors the art in front of them, a reflection folding the viewer back into the work. Sometimes, it’s a perfect accident. Sometimes, it feels almost choreographed.

A man who could’ve stepped right out of a Thiebaud painting. *De Young Museum, Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes From Art, 2025.*

Chromatic synchronicity in paint and dress. *Jessica Silverman Gallery, Clare Rojas: The Magic of it All, 2024.*

A leopard-print dress facing Amy Sherald’s woman in a similar pattern. *Amy Sherald: American Sublime, SFMOMA, 2025*.

A man’s head seen through the window reflects a man’s head in the the oddly placed painting. *Berggruen Gallery, Barry McGee: Old Mystified, 2025.*

Me, walking towards the exit, mirroring a painting of a woman in a doorway, her back turned to the viewer. *Jessica Silverman Clare Rojas: Clare’s Balls, 2024.*

Three women with dark hair and fair skin moving in sync through afternoon light. *Alabama on Alabama, Heath Ceramics Boiler Room, 2015.*

A young woman covered in sparkles, reflecting the exuberance of a massive artwork as she adds her own strip of colorful tape. *Wonderspaces, Scottsdale, Arizona, 2023.*

An elegant woman gazing at a muted landscape, dressed in equally spare, earthy tones. *SF MOMA, 2023.*

Self reflections

Moments when the viewer and the artwork share a single plane, captured together in glass or mirrored surfaces.

My reflection folds into Barbara Stauffacher’s “Treasure Island,” tracing the contours of the landscape until I become part of it. *Et al. Gallery, Same Blue as the Sky, 2024.*

A couple reflected in a window, perfectly aligned with a painted couple beyond the glass. *Jessica Silverman, Clare Rojas: Clare’s Balls, 2024.*

People Becoming Art

Sometimes, the boundary dissolves completely. A person steps into the artwork’s aura completing or transforming a silhouette, becoming part of the piece itself.

A woman leans in to photograph Ruth Asawa’s hanging forms, her silhouette echoing the sculpture’s suspended curves. Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, SFMOMA, 2025.

Hinging forward to get a closer look, the vertical totem becomes something more complex, a collaboration of form. *Et al. Gallery, Same Blue as the Sky, “Carved Effigy Motivated by Toltec Columns”, Isaac Vazquez Avila, 2025.*

Art needs people. People need art. Without one, the other is incomplete. Art depends on us for scale and interpretation and we depend on it for reflection and meaning.

A quick note: I’ve changed the name of this newsletter to Sharon’s Notes. It better reflects where my writing is heading. Still about design, but also art, culture, and the way we see and think about things. Thanks for following along.

Sharon's Notes

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