Wooden Grain Shovel c. 1941

This is Pearl Davis’s ‘Wooden Grain Shovel’, rendered with what seems to be pencil or maybe ink wash on paper. It’s all in shades of sepia, or burnt umber. It's humble, right? A shovel. I can imagine Pearl now, sketching away, really looking at it - you know, sometimes the most ordinary objects, when you really focus, they start to glow, to vibrate with meaning. How would that wood feel in your hand? And I wonder if she had ever used one like it herself? To what end? To make bread, or some other kind of simple grain cake? I keep thinking about Chardin, that French painter of pots and pans, and how he could make a copper pot sing. I like to think these artists are all in conversation somehow. Davis takes an everyday tool and makes it timeless, lets us meditate on the beauty of the mundane. It's like she's saying, hey, pay attention, beauty is all around.