Pa. German Butter Mold 1935 - 1942

Charlotte Angus made this watercolor, Pa. German Butter Mold, and as a painter myself, I am always curious about how an artist approaches an image. Here, Angus uses a spare, earthy palette, and simple marks to depict the original butter mold, and you can see how the object itself served as a kind of printing press. This makes me think about surfaces, and the ways we experience texture and color – the way a painting feels as much as looks. In the original mold, the cow, tree, and foliage are carved into the wood, creating a design through absence, a bit like a reverse drawing. Angus traces this process, echoing the simple lines of the original carving in her application of pigment to the paper. The image feels both handmade and mechanical, a copy of a copy, a translation of a translation. In this, I am reminded of the work of another Charlotte, Charlotte Johannesson, whose tapestries embrace the potential of art as a form of constant dialogue and exchange.