Taper Jack c. 1936

Janet Riza made this watercolor drawing of a taper jack, sometime between 1855 and 1995. There’s something so thoughtful and restrained in her mark-making, a real sense of the artist’s hand at work. Look at the way she's built up the form with such delicate, almost translucent washes of colour. The physical presence of the taper jack, the sheen of the metal, the play of light – it's all there in those subtle gradients. Notice, too, how she renders the circular and swirling motifs around the base and the top left corner. You get the sense that Riza wasn't just copying an object but trying to capture its essence. It reminds me a little of Agnes Martin’s ethereal grids, where the beauty lies not in perfection, but in the imperfections and the inherent qualities of the medium. In both, the process is the point. Art is a conversation, an ongoing exchange of ideas.