Zoar Lock w/ Key c. 1938

Angelo Bulone made this watercolor drawing of a Zoar Lock with Key, but we don't know exactly when. What interests me most is the way Bulone has so carefully laid out all the parts, like an exploded diagram in an instruction manual. There’s something so compelling about the way he’s rendered the aged metal. You can almost feel the cool, rough texture. Look closely, and you’ll notice subtle variations in tone, areas where the rust seems to bloom outward, creating a kind of depth that's not just visual, but also tactile. The key hangs there in the middle of the frame, isolated and apart, like an invitation to look closer, to figure out how things work. It reminds me a little of some of Joseph Cornell’s boxes, how they invite you into a private world of obsession and memory. Both artists ask us to consider the beauty of the mundane. They both embrace ambiguity, suggesting the richness of multiple interpretations over fixed meanings.