Toleware Bread Tray c. 1941

Mildred Ford made this watercolour painting of a toleware bread tray sometime in the twentieth century. Look at how she's built up the surface of the bread within the tray with layer upon layer of transparent washes. I wonder if she was using thin glazes to build the form from the bottom up, or if she worked wet-on-wet? I bet it felt to her like a dance: the brush moving just so, the water blooming on the page...you know, trying to capture the object's essence. The cherries around the rim read like a series of perfect circles, almost mechanically placed. And then, the bread! I love the way the edges of the tray are subtly echoed in the form of the bread within, as if one is miming the other. It reminds me of Morandi's paintings of bottles, where a limited color palette creates a space for contemplation. Ford, like Morandi, elevates the everyday, inviting us to find beauty in the simplest of forms. Like so many artists before and since, Ford teaches us to really look, and to wonder.