Toleware Coffee Pot 1935 - 1942

This Toleware Coffee Pot was made by Nicholas Acampora, and it is a study in the kind of intense looking you get when you are getting ready to paint something. The way Acampora approaches the object has a real sense of process, of figuring something out, a lot like when you are in your kitchen figuring out how to make coffee. This process is really visible in the drawing’s layering, you can almost feel Acampora’s looking across the surface of the pot. That reddish color! And the way it isn't consistent over the object! The scumbled details and the thin application of the watercolor are really interesting to me. I think the surface is really lovely because it isn't really resolved. The whole thing feels like a memory, or a dream, which makes me think of the paintings of Giorgio Morandi. He also made simple studies of household objects, and looked until they turned into something mysterious.