Blue Bird 1978

Gene Davis made this stripe painting called Blue Bird, and it's all cool blues and greens on a beige background. I love to imagine him in the studio, carefully laying down each line of color. What’s it like to be in the studio painting stripes? The repetition, the slight variations—I can almost feel the artist’s hand moving back and forth, trying to get it just right. There are lots of different sizes of stripes and the combination is almost musical. The stripes aren’t perfect and are close together, a little uneven. It reminds me a bit of Agnes Martin’s grids and the way she uses imperfection to make something beautiful and human. It’s like Davis is saying, "Here I am, making a painting, one stripe at a time." And that’s a conversation I want to be part of.