Carousel Dog c. 1939

Dorothy Handy made this "Carousel Dog" on paper with watercolour. Look at the way the dog is illuminated, the way the grey pigment pools and blends. It's like she's chasing after light, letting the watercolour bleed into the form, making it shimmer. It gives the impression of movement. I love the idea of painting a sculpture; it's a copy of a copy. The palette is restrained but rich, that muted red saddle looks so inviting! The linear details, like the trim of the saddle, are so precise they bring the whole image into sharp focus, kind of like a technical drawing. It's an image that seems to straddle the line between folk art and something more refined. She reminds me of Bill Traylor, another artist who depicted figures in a way that feels both deeply personal and universally relatable, drawing on memory and lived experience to create images that resonate long after you've seen them. I think that ambiguity and multiplicity is the joy of art, it holds so many ideas at once.