Urn Design c. 1940

Charles Goodwin made this urn design on paper, using what looks like pencil and watercolor. I can almost feel him working on this—thinking, erasing, rethinking. It's not just a picture of a bowl, but a proposal for one! The soft, grayed-out color palette gives it a sculptural feeling, like the urn already exists in the world. I'm reminded of Agnes Martin's subtle grids, but with a utilitarian purpose. The urn's curves are rendered with such care, you can almost feel the cool smoothness of the stone. The lines that jut out from the diagrammatic drawings of the urn have such confidence. Like 'this is how it should be'. I wonder if he knew who would make it? I'm so curious about how an artist's vision morphs into material form through the hands of another. All art is a conversation, right? Goodwin probably looked at classical urns to come up with this design, and now, here we are, looking at it too. I think that painting, like any art, is ultimately a process, a place of questions and possibilities.