Handkerchief 1935 - 1942

George Constantine made this painting of a handkerchief, and it makes me think about the subtle labor of creating a pattern. He’s built the image from the smallest marks, and the painting breathes through the handmade quality of the checks. You can see the gentle variations in the weave. He hasn’t tried to make it perfect. Maybe he had a handkerchief like this. Maybe he thought about it a lot, how it sat in his pocket. He must have looked at it closely. He paid attention to the lines, some brown, some blue. He understood something about how they meet. Artists spend their lives having conversations with one another, whether they know it or not, so I want to thank George for the pattern, and for all the things it has brought to mind.