Crock c. 1937

Yolande Delasser made this drawing of a Crock, but we don't know exactly when. The way Delasser approached it reminds me that art making is a process of observation. The watercolor looks like a straightforward rendering of a simple utilitarian object, and yet it's full of soft, unpredictable blends of color and tone. There's a kind of tender awkwardness to it. Look closely at the blue, leaf-like decoration on the front of the crock. It's rendered so precisely, so carefully, and the dark blue pigment bleeds slightly into the porous surface of the paper, giving it a ghostly softness. Delasser's crock makes me think about Giorgio Morandi's still life paintings. Both Delasser and Morandi elevated modest, everyday objects to a place of quiet, contemplative beauty. Art is about embracing the unexpected, finding poetry in the mundane, and recognizing that meaning is always open to interpretation.