Miniature Basket c. 1936

Grace Halpin made this drawing of a miniature basket, with what looks like watercolor or maybe colored pencil. I’m really drawn to how the basket is built up through these delicate lines, like she’s constructing the form right in front of us. You can almost feel her hand moving, weaving, building, a real sense of process. Notice that the paint is really thin, almost transparent, allowing the texture of the paper to show through. It’s like she’s inviting us to consider the physicality of the medium, to really see the surface. And those little details, the way she renders the woven texture, it's just so charming. There’s a certain kind of graphic quality, a flattening of space, that reminds me of some of the work of, I don’t know, maybe someone like Florine Stettheimer, whose paintings also have that slightly naive, decorative feel. But Halpin’s work is so clearly her own, an intimate, careful study of the everyday. It reminds us that art is all about looking, seeing, and translating the world around us into something new.