Bulto (Virgin) c. 1939

This watercolor of a ‘Bulto (Virgin)’ was painted by Majel G. Claflin at an unknown date. Just look at the way Claflin's brush teases out the colors beneath the surface, the reds peeking through like a blush. I imagine her, eyes squinting, mixing washes, letting the pigment pool and settle, almost like she's coaxing this little figure into being. The texture is like a map of tiny gestures, each dab and stroke layering up to something bigger, something that feels both solid and ephemeral. Claflin captures the Virgin's quiet dignity and the raw, weathered surface of the wood. There is a conversation between representation and abstraction here, a dance between the thing and the feeling of the thing. Thinking about what it might have been like to paint this, maybe with quiet reverence, maybe with a painter's curiosity to capture light and shadow? It kind of reminds me of Marsden Hartley's folk art studies, where the ordinary becomes imbued with a sort of spiritual weight.