Tilt Table c. 1937

Ferdinand Cartier made this drawing, "Tilt Table," and it's like a little world all its own, captured on paper. The whole thing is a deep, dark red—almost bloody, but in a good way, you know? It's like he's built this pulsing shape out of tiny, repetitive marks, each one fanning out from the center. I can see him, bent over the paper, lost in the rhythm of it all. There’s something really hypnotic about this singular form, a kind of tunnel vision that pulls you in. I mean, what was Cartier thinking? Was he seeing something we're not? Was he trying to distill some kind of energy? What does a Tilt Table even mean? It reminds me of some of Agnes Martin's grids, or even a little bit of Hilma af Klint's spiritual diagrams, but with its own obsessive twist. It makes you realize we're all in this ongoing conversation, trying to figure out what it all means, one little mark at a time.