Pueblo Moonlight 1927

Howard Cook made this evocative print of a pueblo at night, pulling blacks and whites from a block. You can feel the artist’s hand in those incisive marks, the back and forth, a kind of haptic, searching rhythm channelling something deep. I get the feeling that Cook was obsessed with light. Look at the way the artist contrasted it with the deep shadows of the pueblo, as if searching for a language to make the darkness speak. What does it mean to make a mark, a line? Is it a way of ordering chaos or giving shape to the invisible? There’s a dialogue going on between the artist, the material, and the subject. It reminds me of other artists like Emil Nolde who were similarly obsessed with black and white prints, that reductive process, who seemed to understand that sometimes less is more. Artists are always talking to each other, across time and space, riffing on ideas, pushing boundaries. And in the end, it’s about opening up possibilities, embracing the unknown, and trusting the process.