Contributed by David Whelan / The idea for the exhibition “Dike Blair: Matinee,” now at the Edward Hopper House, came from a discussion the artist had with curator Helen Molesworth in front of Edward Hopper’s 1938 painting New York, Movie. The picture is split in two: on the left a black-and-white film plays on a movie screen, and on the right a stairway leads away from the film, perhaps outside. In front of the stairway is a female usher, leaning languidly at the threshold, bathed in ambient light. The usher, the viewer, and possibly even Hopper himself stand at the boundary, resonating an ambivalence towards a life mediated by technology.