Ornamental Wood Carving: Eagle c. 1940

Harriette Gale painted this ornamental wood carving of an eagle, probably sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. The ochre and yellow washes are so evocative, creating an image where the eagle appears to be both emerging from and dissolving into its ground. I wonder what Gale was thinking as she worked? Maybe she was imagining the original artisan who carved the wood, and maybe that artisan was thinking of all the eagles who ever soared across the sky. Each mark, each brushstroke, feels like a conversation between them, a kind of call and response across time and space. The eagle’s feathers have a kind of urgent vitality that you just can’t fake. It reminds me that we artists are always in dialogue with each other, pinching each other's ideas and transforming them into something new. And that's what makes art so exciting – it's a messy, unpredictable process that embraces doubt and ambiguity.