A Year in Windows chronicles the artist’s studios in Virginia, Illinois, New York, Michigan and Texas. Many of the paintings are of views looking out of her studio window or of the windows themselves, light raking across window screens, clouds reflected in the glass panes or intriguing nighttime windows seen from the sidewalks lit from within. The first painting in this series was made in February 2019 during a residency at The Wassaic Project in rural New York State. Sophie Treppendahl’s Wassaic studio itself was much smaller than she was accustomed to, but it was her first studio with a window. Having that window from which to watch people, to observe the snow melt and the light shift made the studio feel that it contained not only herself and her work but also the vibrant life outside the small space. Treppendahl painted that first panel to memorialize how special her little window was to her. In the next 12 months, windows increasingly became a muse for Treppendahl. She found inspiration and was influenced by the work of painters Lois Dodd, Alex Katz and Josephine Halvorson who also spent periods of their careers painting views in and out of windows.