Grandfather Clock c. 1936

Ernest A. Towers Jr. made this drawing of a grandfather clock, using pen and ink on paper. Three versions of the clock stretch across the page. You can almost feel the artist sketching, the scratch of the pen moving back and forth. I wonder what it was like to make this drawing? Was Towers interested in furniture making or design? Or was he interested in how objects exist in space? The lines seem to mimic the grain of the wood, and the curves on the clock faces are very precise. It seems like he’s also playing with what it means to show something from different angles. It makes me think about Sol LeWitt's sculptures, where he would present an object from multiple perspectives to show us all the sides at once. It’s like Towers is exploring the dimensions of time and space within this drawing. I wonder if these were his grandfather’s clocks, and if he was thinking about his own family history while he was making it? So many possibilities...