Weather Vane c. 1937

Joseph Stonefield’s drawing of a weathervane, made sometime in the twentieth century, has such a lovely, earnest quality. You can see the marks of the pencil as it traces and shades this figure, which gives a real sense of the hand at work. I find myself focusing on the figure, with the way the light is suggested by subtle gradations of graphite. It's like he's trying to capture not just the shape, but the feeling of light moving across this metal form. The marks are unassuming, but deliberate, and it feels like the artist is really trying to understand the object through the act of drawing it. Thinking about the tradition of folk art, I wonder if Stonefield knew the work of Martín Ramírez, who also worked with humble materials like graphite to create such powerful images. There's something about the directness and simplicity of both artists that I find so moving, it reminds me that art doesn't always have to be flashy or complicated to be profound.