UNTITLED (CAMEL) 1925

This is Alexander Calder’s "Untitled (Camel)", made with ink on paper. You can almost feel the quickness of Calder’s hand. A few strokes of ink, decisive and full of energy, and boom, there's the camel! I can imagine him, maybe in a tent, or a café, quickly trying to capture the essence of the animal, its humps, its spindly legs. It’s a bit awkward and ungainly, but so is a camel, right? The ink is thin, soaking into the paper, not trying to hide anything. It reminds me of Joan Miró’s playful lines and Matisse's simple shapes. Artists, we're all just riffing off each other, you know? Taking a little bit from here, adding a little bit from there, all part of this ongoing conversation. It’s like Calder is saying, "Here’s a camel, but it’s also just a bunch of lines, a feeling, an idea." And that's what I love about painting: it’s never just one thing, it’s always a maybe, a what if, an open question.