Flat Iron Holder c. 1939

Irene Lawson made this drawing of a flat iron holder, and it's all about the process. The way she builds up the form with these tiny, careful marks, it's like she's feeling her way around the object. Look closely at how the stippling varies in density, creating areas of light and shadow. It’s all about texture. The surface is almost tactile, like you could reach out and feel the cool metal and warm wood of the holder. The piece feels very connected to the tradition of technical drawing, but the handmade quality of the stippling, you can imagine the artist’s hand moving slowly across the page, building up the image dot by dot, gives it a unique quality. It reminds me a little of Agnes Martin's drawings, with that same kind of quiet, meditative repetition. But where Martin is all about abstraction, Lawson is grounded in the everyday, elevating the mundane into something beautiful and strange. It shows you how seeing is about looking.