Jar c. 1939

Curator: Elsie Wein created this compelling watercolor and charcoal drawing titled “Jar” around 1939. What catches your eye first? Editor: The subdued earth tones contrasting with the striking blue motifs immediately create a serene but grounded feeling. It reminds me of the colors you'd find in a well-loved, aged ceramic piece. Curator: It’s fascinating how Wein elevates a simple jar through these expressive yet minimal designs. The leaves evoke a sense of growth and nature. The jar as a vessel takes on symbolic resonance of sustenance and continuity. Editor: Right, but consider also the material reality: a jar produced for storage, potentially involving specific clays sourced locally. This drawing itself documents a whole chain of production and consumption, from the earth to the table. Curator: Absolutely, and one can almost feel the weight of the full jar, visualizing it stocked in a pantry. Are the leaves simply decorative? Or could they reference particular plants commonly preserved using such jars? This becomes a key part of reading the whole symbol. Editor: Exactly, linking the visual back to everyday practice. Plus, note how she uses watercolor and charcoal, seemingly simple media but carrying their own history of accessibility and usage in documentation and artistry. How readily available and relatively inexpensive they were would define their popularity in applied or technical art as well. Curator: A wonderful point! I wonder what Elsie Wein was communicating about preservation or about domestic life in 1939. Editor: Or the economic life embedded in craft—was she aware of herself, in documenting it, preserving something as well about its materiality? It’s really beautiful. Curator: Yes. It offers us such a grounded vision for seeing and knowing, then and now. Editor: A great, small object, big with layered stories!