Vase c. 1937

Lillian Causey rendered this vase using graphite and colored pencil on paper. I really admire her commitment to capturing the intricate details of the cut glass. I can almost see her, hunched over her drawing, squinting to observe how the light plays across the surface, creating a symphony of reflections. Did she struggle with getting the symmetry just right? I wonder if she used a real vase as her model or worked from memory. You know, sometimes, when you try to draw something hyper-real, your little mistakes end up being the best part. It’s the quiet, almost imperceptible shifts in tone and line weight that gives the vase its three-dimensionality. By leaving much of the paper untouched, Causey invites us to fill in the gaps, to imagine the vase not just as an object but as a vessel, ready to be filled with light, flowers, or maybe just our own daydreams. Drawing, like painting, is a dialogue across time, with each mark a response to what came before. It reminds us that artmaking is an ongoing conversation.