Buffalo Dance (Santa Clara) 1946

Ira Moskowitz’s lithograph, Buffalo Dance, comes alive through a dance of dense, scribbled lines, etched onto paper. I think of Ira at work, maybe he had a need to record this event. You see, lithography is all about the hand—a direct translation of touch onto stone. It’s like drawing, but with a greasy crayon. Imagine him, leaning in close, pressing that crayon, feeling the give of the stone, then the reveal as the image emerges from the acid bath. The crayon allows him to capture the rough textures of the buffalo headdresses, each line a deliberate mark, building up the figures from the ground up. This feels like he's trying to get at something elemental in the dance, something totemic. It reminds me that artists are always in conversation, not just with their subjects, but with each other across time. Each mark holds a question, inviting us to look, to feel, to dance along in our minds. And that’s where the real magic happens, right?