Child's Bonnet 1935 - 1942

This is Mary E. Humes’ Child’s Bonnet, made with graphite and watercolor. Look at the hatch marks she uses to describe the curves of the bonnet. It’s not just a picture of something; it’s a record of her hand moving across the page. The graphite gives the bonnet structure, a kind of scaffolding for the watercolor. That brown wash is so soft, almost like it's a memory of a bonnet. I wonder what it was like to see it in real life. There’s something almost meditative about the repetition of those lines, how she builds up the form with these tiny strokes. Like Agnes Martin’s grids, it’s more about the process than the product. It reminds me of the quiet intensity of someone like Christina Ramberg, who also found so much to explore in the everyday. Art's not about answers, right? It's about how many questions you can ask.