Teapot c. 1936

This drawing of a teapot was made with pencil by Leo Drozdoff sometime before 1964. The image emerges through the act of drawing itself— a shifting, emerging thing, worked out through trial, error, and intuition. I really sympathize with Drozdoff here. I imagine him, squinting, moving back and forth, trying to capture the glint of the metal. I wonder if he was fond of tea? Maybe he was thinking of the person who would eventually use this ornate thing. See how the graphite renders the metallic surface, each mark carefully placed to suggest the reflective quality of the silver? There's such a tactile quality in the shading. It's like he's not just drawing a teapot, but really trying to grasp its essence. Painters are always in conversation with each other, riffing off ideas across time. This drawing reminds us that art-making is about an ongoing embodied exchange, full of ambiguity and uncertainty, leaving space for endless interpretations.