Wooden Meal Scoop c. 1937

Here's Gene Luedke's drawing of a Wooden Meal Scoop. Look at the way Luedke has captured the wooden texture, those warm browns. I imagine him sketching, stepping back, squinting to see the form emerge, line by line. There's something deeply satisfying about the precision of this drawing, the meticulousness of the outlines. Maybe Luedke was thinking about the scoop's functionality, its daily use. Did he consider the hands that would hold it, the meals it would serve? Was he thinking of his own home? It makes me think about folk art traditions, the way everyday objects become imbued with meaning through craft. These makers are in conversation with each other through their work. You can see them responding to the past as well as the future. The scoop drawing has a sense of wonder, of looking closely at our ordinary world.