Toast Rack c. 1936

Mildred Ford made this drawing of a toast rack, with graphite on paper, at an unknown date. It's like looking at a ghost of a thing, isn't it? The artist isn't trying to trick us. There's a plan view up at the top of the page, which doesn't line up with the drawing of the toast rack itself. I love that. It's so honest. The soft grey of the graphite is spread unevenly across the page. You can see the direction of the strokes, like looking at the weather. A drawing like this is about process. Each line is felt, each choice visible, not hidden by the desire to make a perfect, realistic image. Ford is not trying to sell this object to us. There's a kind of generosity in the artist sharing this with us, showing how an ordinary object can be seen and understood in a new way. Like the drawings of technical objects made by Léger, this drawing transforms our view of the world we inhabit.