Cast Iron Andiron c. 1941

Milton Grubstein made this drawing of a cast iron andiron – a tool to hold wood in a fireplace – with what looks like graphite or charcoal on paper. The values range from light to dark, using tiny marks to create a sense of depth. It’s a really process-oriented piece, with a lot of attention paid to building up the image slowly. If you look closely, you can see how the texture of the cast iron is rendered by the artist’s hand, with tiny marks accumulating to create a sense of density and weight. There’s something kind of poetic about how the artist has translated the materiality of the object into the language of drawing, using a dry, almost brittle medium to evoke the solid, heavy presence of the andiron. In a way, the drawing becomes a kind of surrogate for the object itself. This kind of close attention to the everyday reminds me of the work of contemporary artist Vija Celmins, who also makes drawings of ordinary objects like stones and shells. Both artists seem interested in the way that art can transform our perception of the world around us, inviting us to slow down and really see what’s there.