Wooden Fife c. 1936

This is Edward Loper’s drawing of a wooden fife. It's not dated, but it shows us the fife twice, once shaded with graphite or something, and once just as an outline with measurements. I love how the drawing feels like a practical guide and a ghost of a real object. Look at how the shading gives the fife weight, but the outline version is all about precision. And those little holes, each one a portal to a different note. Loper is really interested in how things work, not just how they look. It makes me think about technical drawings, and how they can be strangely beautiful, even poetic. Like Sol LeWitt's wall drawings or some of Agnes Martin's grids. They all show us that art can be about ideas and systems, not just emotions. This piece shows the ongoing conversation that art has, echoing and changing through time.