"Casa en Mesita" or Chest on Stand c. 1939

Majel G. Claflin made this 'Casa en Mesita', or Chest on Stand, sometime before 1941, we think, using watercolor, graphite, and maybe some gouache on paper. The palette is all earth tones, which gives it a sense of being very real, and immediate, like something from everyday life, but it's also idealized. The artist is looking at this object, and then making it her own. Look at the way she renders the textures of the wood, not trying to trick the eye, but trying to get at something more essential and structural. I'm really drawn to the support structure, all those kind of gothic looking Xs and how they hold up the weight of the trunk. It's like the bones of the piece. The whole surface feels open to me, where you can really see the hand of the artist, and sense her thought process as she translated the thing in front of her, it feels like she lets the viewer see it too. That reminds me a bit of some of Marsden Hartley's still life paintings, like he's looking at something in the world, and then painting it with his own heart. I love that art is always in conversation that way, one artist to another, across time.