Trunk c. 1937

John Thorsen made this drawing of a trunk, and it's a beautiful thing because it shows us how to look closely. The colors are all in the brown family, but it’s the mark-making that gets me. Look at the end of the trunk; each plank is carefully described with thin strokes that follow the grain of the wood. The drawing has an almost ghostly quality, like an apparition. See how the different materials are rendered – the tarnished metal, the worn leather, the aged wood. Everything is so carefully observed, yet there's a looseness to the whole thing. It reminds me a bit of some of the work of Philip Guston, not in terms of style, but in the dedication to process. It's not about perfection, but about the act of seeing and recording and transforming. It’s about embracing the beauty of imperfection.