Eagle c. 1937

Alice Domey made this watercolor, “Eagle,” and who knows when exactly, but she lived a long life, so I imagine her returning to it, refining it over time. The eagle, rendered in brown with hints of purple, spreads its wings like it's about to take off. I can almost hear the flapping of the wings, a sound both powerful and delicate. It's cool how she captured the texture of the feathers, the subtle variations in tone and the sharp lines that define each plume. I wonder if Domey was thinking about similar artists and the way they depict birds. Did Audubon ever cross her mind? I bet she looked at him sometimes, but then went her own way. She knew what she was doing, that's for sure. Artists, we’re always in dialogue, wrestling with the same ideas, pushing and pulling on each other's creativity. Each brushstroke, each dab of color, a continuation of a conversation that has been going on for centuries.