Neck Buckle 1935 - 1942

Kalamian Walton made this drawing of a buckle, at an unspecified date, with what appears to be watercolor on paper. There’s something so lovely about the isolated precision of these shapes, the exactitude required to bring them into being. I imagine Walton, hunched over a desk, focused intently on the object, working and reworking the lines and curves of the buckle. It is as though she’s asking, how can I best describe this? How can I get the details just right? The three views of the buckle suggest a deep curiosity about the object. The side view is particularly charming, like a little punctuation mark. Walton’s wider practice is unknown to me, but I'd like to think that she went on to inspire other artists to look closely at the world around them. Artists are always having a conversation with one another through time, sparking off new ideas and ways of seeing. There's real beauty here, a testament to the endless possibilities of art and human curiosity.