Log Cabin 1937

J. J. Lankes made this print of a Log Cabin. It’s all in black and white and it reminds me of the kind of pictures you see in old books. I can imagine Lankes carving away at the wood block, bit by bit, to make this image. It's such a contrast to the way I paint, where I'm always adding and subtracting. But there's a similarity too, in the way you have to think about what you're doing and how the whole thing will look in the end. The way he's done the sky, with all those tiny lines, it’s as if you could reach out and touch the clouds. And the tree! You can almost feel the breeze rustling through the leaves. What was he thinking when he made this? Was he trying to capture a memory, a feeling? Every artist builds on the work of those who came before, even if they don't realize it. It’s one big conversation. Making art is a way of understanding the world, even when—or maybe especially when—it doesn't make perfect sense.