Sea Bird Saga XI 1966

Wallace Bradstreet Putnam made this drawing, Sea Bird Saga XI, with charcoal. I wonder, what saga is he trying to tell us? The charcoal marks, like rough seas, have this back-and-forth rhythm. You can almost hear the scratch of the charcoal on the paper, sense the artist’s hand moving, layering, building up the image from dark to light. It’s like he’s carving the forms out of the darkness. Maybe Putnam was trying to capture the constant motion of the sea, the way the light changes, the sense of endlessness. These repeated marks remind me of Cy Twombly’s work. Both artists have this way of making marks that feel both ancient and immediate, like they’re tapping into something primal. This piece feels very personal, like a diary entry. Artists are always in conversation with each other, riffing on ideas and techniques, and that drawing is like a little note in that ongoing exchange. It's nice to think of art as a conversation across time.