Spinning Wheel 1935 - 1942

Eugene Barrell made this drawing of a spinning wheel in the mid-20th century, using colored pencil on paper. Look closely, and you’ll notice the frame around the object, like it's on display, a relic of the past. What must it have been like to create this image? Barrell is carefully tracing over what he sees, trying to get it right. Every line, a decision. The wheel itself has been painstakingly rendered with colored pencil, the lines radiating outwards. I love the little motif in the top left corner – a tiny tuft of wool with a spindle. Maybe it’s a detail from a memory, a dream, or just something he saw in a book. It’s funny how our minds work, isn't it? We see something, and it sticks with us, changes us somehow, only to be reworked years later when we make something else. We’re all just spinning each other’s threads, round and round.