Quilt c. 1937

This "Quilt", as it's simply known, comes from the hand of William High, and what strikes me is the drawing as a process of translating textiles into another medium. Look at how High renders the surface of the quilt; you can almost feel the textures, the padded layers, and the dense stitching. But it's all just paper and pencil, a trompe l'oeil effect achieved through simple shading and careful mark-making! Isn't that wild? And then there’s the central flower motif, those concentric circles of pink petals against the cool blue and white triangles border. It’s a classic pattern, of course, but High brings out a graphic quality, a push-and-pull between flatness and depth, which reminds me of some of the early American modernists, like Marsden Hartley. They were also looking at folk art for new ideas about abstraction. It goes to show, art’s an ongoing conversation across generations, each artist riffing on what came before.