Bulto, St. Francis c. 1936

Majel G. Claflin created this watercolour, Bulto, St. Francis. The palette is simple - reds, blacks, whites and browns - but the image is striking. I can imagine Claflin creating this, patiently applying the washes of color in confident lines, delineating the geometric shapes. Her process becomes a form of inquiry into the subject, the figure of St. Francis rendered in a mix of abstraction and representation, and the folk art tradition from which this figure emerged. The vertical red and black stripes give the figure volume, yet flatten the image at the same time, in a way that recalls the work of artists like Marsden Hartley. It makes me wonder what she might have been thinking about during the painting process, balancing flatness and depth, presence and absence. Artists are in constant dialogue. Each artwork builds on the ideas of those who came before, and paves the way for new visions.