Foot Stove c. 1937

This is Wilbur Rice’s rendering of a foot stove made with graphite on paper. Look closely at the way the artist paid careful attention to the stove’s ornate details. Wilbur may have started by roughly sketching in the overall shapes and proportions, then gradually refining the details and adding layers of shading to build depth and dimension. I can imagine him holding the pencil just so, tilting the paper this way and that to catch the light, and squinting to make sure he got it just right. Each stroke of the pencil is a little act of translation, taking something solid and three-dimensional and turning it into a flat image on paper. When I look at this drawing, I think about other artists like Vija Celmins, who also make drawings of everyday objects that encourage us to slow down and appreciate the beauty of ordinary things. Every artist is in conversation with artists from the past, present, and future. I bet Wilbur would have loved to know that his drawing would be here, for us to enjoy, so many years later.