Watching-Waiting

John Burton Norall

In the late 20th century John Norall worked on a series of watercolors he collectively titled “Waiting,” comprising several images of people in a state of suspended activity. Sitting at a bus stop, perched on a pier with a fishing pole, anticipating the angle of an incoming tennis ball, etc. It is evident that Norall was intrigued by the state of in-between, where a person is caught for a brief moment - or even, sometimes, for several hours - in stasis, allowing an outside observer to wonder what the figures in the scene are thinking; what compels them to continue to wait?

In this unusual composition the observer is looking upward at the top floor of an apartment building, seeing a man with binoculars leaning out of a window, holding still, waiting on his own observation. Just beyond him on the second floor outcropping sits a pair of seagulls, looking in the same direction. They, too, wait.