Masthead Light c. 1936

Florence Huston’s ‘Masthead Light’ is a lovely linear drawing. There is a quality to this image that suggests a kind of meditative process; it’s as if the lines are laid down one by one, creating the form incrementally. Each mark contributes to the whole, and it’s this cumulative effect that captures your attention. I imagine Huston was thinking of something bigger, maybe the sea and the sky. It seems to be about the idea of illumination and guidance, of shedding light on the unknown, a beacon in the dark. You see the hatch marks she's making. It's an architecture, she's thinking carefully. This piece reminds me of other artists who explore form and function. Like the Pattern and Decoration artists like Joyce Kozloff, Huston shows a focus on geometric forms and repeated motifs. There is a sense of how art can turn into craft, or is it the other way around? Art-making creates a dialogue, a constant exchange of ideas across time.