Basket 1935

Michael Trekur made this drawing of a basket, we don't know when or with what, but I can tell you what I see. The drawing is all about careful, close observation and repetitive mark-making. I'm thinking about the artist making this piece, patiently adding lines and blocks of color, one by one, building up the form. It's a meditation on craft. The hand and the eye are working together, trying to capture the texture and pattern of the original object. It's like a slow dance between the artist, the basket, and the paper. I love how the surface is built up in layers. You can almost feel the artist's hand moving across the paper. We see the pattern rendered in these zinging blues and reds. The basket is a form of embodied expression, like a conversation, inspiring new ways of seeing.