Colcha 1935 - 1942

Majel G. Claflin created this Colcha with paint on paper. I love how this piece feels both old and new. The muted palette, that looping, almost cartoonish vine, it gives a sense of folk art but with a modern simplicity. Claflin is playing with these brown lines to create a border, a frame, and a path for these bright blue flowers to hang on to. The flowers themselves are bold, each with its own unique yellow mark – almost like a signature. I imagine Claflin carefully placing each flower, thinking about balance, color, rhythm. What was she thinking? And those soft pink dots – are they petals falling, or just a way to fill the space? It's like a simplified sampler, and I like to think of artists like her as being in conversation with Agnes Martin or Ellsworth Kelly, who took the essence of things and made them sing on the canvas.