Edward Hopper, Again
In which I am once again thinking about loneliness and Edward Hopper
My first substack post was about Edward Hopper, and while I’m terrified to look at it again, I find I’ve been thinking about him as we enter into this season. My Christmas shopping was done early, my work is slowing down, but my hands have been in immense pain. This isn’t necessarily bad, though it feels terrible. Writing these sentences have hurt me terribly.
The reason it’s not bad is because my doctor and I are actively working on a solution so I have to push myself a little. And by push myself, I mean I have to do the things I love that I’ve pushed aside in favor of a pain-free life. By October it started up again, making it hard for me to do my day job. Soon, it’ll get to the point where I can’t hold a mug without crying in pain.
I don’t get the winter blues, and while I am prone to being dramatic about my hands (but in my defense, I can’t write, cook, or make art when this happens), I just find the stress of the holidays takes away from the joy. My favorite Christmas song is All I Ever Get For Christmas is Blue by Over the Rhine. It’s not a well known one, but it’s one I’m always singing throughout December.
Recently, I was likely to be found crying myself to sleep. A situation I won’t get into left me feeling lonelier than ever. I felt, for lack of a better phrase, like an Edward Hopper painting.
Naturally, when I’m at my lowest, I turn to art for comfort.
What made this particular brand of loneliness extra terrible was that I had no one to call. I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened because the person I usually called was the one who hurt me. I was left to speak quietly to my pillow as tears streamed down my face.
Loneliness is my oldest friend, but I wish she were my greatest enemy. In the days that followed this hollowing of self, I was so out of sorts I wasn’t sure how to function. How can I explain this gap in me when there is no one to hear these half-formed words? My family was around, of course, and knew the situation, but they were not mine, not in the way I needed.
Eleven AM was a painting I first came across as the cover of a book. It sits on a used copy of a Joyce Carol Oats short story collection I owned (that is signed, oddly enough). I thought this was such a fascinating choice, this painting of a woman naked save her shoes.
Despite her state of undress, she stares out the window at the world. I doubt there will ever be an artist that can capture city loneliness like Edward Hopper. I have so many questions for this woman. Why the shoes? Are you not worried someone will see? Are you hoping someone will?
Her hair is shielding her face from us, the room she occupies is cramped but simple. This room does not provide us insights into her psyche or her deeper thoughts. We are left out of her inner world, while sitting in it. Are we the lonely ones, or is she?
When I see this painting, I’m reminded of that sensation of secondhand embarrassment that prevents me from rewatching some television shows or movies. I think to those times when I ache so much for a character that I cannot physically put myself through that torture again.
It’s not that I’m embarrassed for her, but I can’t place what I’m supposed to feel and the discomfort of not knowing makes it hard to look at. Am I being punished by her, standing in a room where she refuses to acknowledge me? Am I a mere witness to her desperate loneliness, her desperation to have someone just see her? Am I the perpetrator, the cause of her loneliness?
The question I find myself asking myself when I look at Eleven AM is, when I don’t have anyone to share these inky feelings, where do they go? Do they just sit inside me, weighing my body down and holding my feet sternly to the ground? If no one hears me cry when I desperately need to be heard, does my body absorb the tears in the hopes they can have an audience one day? Or do they blend into my skin, consuming my cells until I cannot tell the difference between the person I was before this depth of loneliness and the person they made me?
I wandered around the grocery store next to my work the day the loneliness sank in. I wandered aimlessly, not sure what to do or say. I have abnormally long legs, so my pace is ridiculously fast. There was no destination in my mind, just the need to move. Maybe I could cry. Maybe someone would ask me why I was crying. Maybe I wanted to strip down bare and stare out a window in the hopes that just one person will see. Just one person will acknowledge my loneliness.
Eventually, I found myself sitting at Starbucks with a drink the barista recommended and my mind fell on Edward Hopper. Edward Hopper, an artist I struggle to respect, but keep coming back to. Similar to myself, he was tall (though much more so at 6’5”) and found that height made one a target for unwanted attention. I explained to a petite coworker that I have a tendency to make myself as small as possible, to slouch and bend over. I told her you can always tell a person is really tall because they slightly bend over, their body so used to having to shadow over people and look down. I’m not even that tall, except that I’m a woman and Latina, and no one knows what to make of all my height.
Some time later, the loneliness dissipated, or it became comfortable. I sank into the holiday music, the fun sweaters, the egg nog. But the painting stuck with me. My hands were still hurting, getting to a near critical point while I navigated the frustrating world of America’s healthcare system. It was on a day when no one spoke to me at work, a day that felt still with silence, then loud with noise as I sat in a restaurant for lunch all alone while noisy groups surrounded me, that I once again fell into Edward Hopper’s world.
I was, once again, the clown on the terrace. I was, once again, a woman on a bed in the morning light. I’ve spoken in the past about my overall disdain for Edward Hopper, how his work has always seemed less interesting to me because of how often it was replicated in media, but there I was, living an Edward Hopper painting.
She’s naked yet wearing shoes.
Wants to think nude. And happy in her body.Though it’s a fleshy aging body. And her posture
in the chair—leaning forward, arms on knees,
staring out the window—makes her belly bulge,
but what the hell.What the hell, he isn’t here.
-first lines from Joyce Carol Oates’ short story
And still, I returned to Eleven A.M. and the woman I cannot comprehend. Joyce Carol Oates wrote a story about this painting. I suspect there are others who have done the same. Maybe one day I’ll add my name to the list. For years I’ve brushed off Edward Hopper’s work because of the media recreations, but perhaps I’ve missed the depth that media adds to his paintings. I could just as easily see Eleven A.M. recreated into a scene in Twin Peaks, and it’s not as if I would be upset about it. I’d probably rejoice.
Perhaps the ability to create narratives from a painting, one beyond the original scope and intention of Edward Hopper’s mind, isn’t just what makes his paintings special, it’s what makes them lonely. Is he an artist who mastered portrayals of loneliness, or have we made him a master by imprinting our own sorrows onto his paintings?
I wanted to write and post one more thing. This was largely me spewing feelings after a falling out that lead to heart break. I’m fine, by the way. And my hands are doing better. In the end, I fall back into art, my dearest friend. May 2025 bring something better for everyone, whether you’re reading this or not.
On New Years Eve, I have a tradition to reread Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. I found myself thinking of Hopper again as I read it, wondering how Edward Hopper would paint Gregor Samsa’s room, big enough for a human but still rather small.
Luka, both of these Hoppers are new to me and I’m grateful for the discovery. I’d been wondering what became of you this last while. Painful hands and loneliness… a terrible combination. May 2025 be good to you.
I hope you have a better New Year's and that your health improves. Loneliness is a variable thing, but you have family with you. I understand that sometimes that isn't enough, but it is something.
Have a good night and a Happy New Year from a fellow art lover.