Untitled [study of legs and dress] 1955 - 1967

Richard Diebenkorn made this drawing, *Untitled [study of legs and dress]*, with graphite on paper, and you know, right away, it just feels so immediate. It's like catching a thought in mid-air. Diebenkorn uses these soft, almost tentative lines that build up the form. There's something so honest about seeing the process laid bare like this. You can almost feel him working through the problem of how to represent the figure, the dress, the way the light falls. Look at those legs, how they're suggested more than defined, or the dress, so carefully placed in the sitter's lap. It’s like he’s feeling his way around the subject. This reminds me of other artists who are constantly looking and re-evaluating their marks, like Giacometti. There's a beauty in that searching quality, the willingness to embrace ambiguity. Art is always a conversation, an ongoing exploration, not a set of answers.