Dropping In 2001

Ray Howlett made this dazzling sculpture called "Dropping In" and I can't help but think of the process he used to make this piece. The sculpture has lines that cascade and converge, creating a sense of depth, and this reminds me of the way you can never control everything when you're painting, there's always something unexpected that happens. The colors are vivid, with streaks of pink, yellow, and green against a dark background, and the base is marked with bright neon spirals that feel like the first marks in an abstract painting. I'm particularly drawn to the top, where all these lines meet, how the artist created this sense of converging movement, it reminds me of some of Frank Stella's geometric paintings. All these lines, all this energy, come together at a single point. It's a reminder that even in abstraction, there's a kind of intentionality, a direction, and that’s the conversation all art is having with itself. It’s a reminder that art is an ongoing conversation, each piece building on what came before.