Side Saddle - California Syle c. 1937

Harry Mann Waddell made this watercolor and graphite painting of a side saddle with a California style, but when, we don't know. Just look at the intricacy of those lines, that patient stitching in brown and blue thread! You can almost feel the artist's hand moving across the paper, carefully outlining and filling in each detail. I imagine Waddell, an older guy born in 1855, sitting in his studio, squinting through his spectacles, and trying to capture the essence of this beautiful saddle. It's funny how the saddle seems almost suspended in mid-air, like a ghost from a bygone era. The unfinished drawing leaves the viewer to complete it, adding the horse, the rider, the landscape. Painting is, after all, an ongoing conversation. Every brushstroke, every color choice, is a response to something that came before, a way of keeping the dialogue alive.