Butter Dish (Hen) c. 1941

Edward Bashaw made this watercolor drawing of a butter dish, sometime in the 20th century, and look how delicately he’s rendered it, almost like an ad for a surreal product! I love the soft, almost faded quality of the blue, how Bashaw uses it to create shadows and depth. It makes the butter dish feel almost like a ghostly apparition. Notice the feathery texture around the hen’s wings, created with short, repetitive strokes. These marks aren’t just descriptive; they’re expressive, giving the hen a sense of lightness and movement. The words ‘The American Hen’ and ‘Cuba’ are rendered in the same understated blue hue. Bashaw’s work reminds me a bit of Joseph Yoakum, in the sense that they both embrace a kind of personal vision, where accuracy takes a backseat to feeling. Art isn’t about getting it ‘right’, it’s about finding your own way of seeing.