Cleavage 1940

Carroll Cloar made this lithograph, "Cleavage," at some point in his career, and it's just brimming with stories. You can almost see the artist leaning into the plate, coaxing these figures out of the stone with each delicate mark. Cloar’s whole world seems to be right here. Look at the array of folks—children playing, adults looking on, each with their own quiet drama unfolding. What was it like for him, I wonder, sifting through memories to conjure this scene? Was it a specific moment, or more of a feeling he was after? The children seem to be in their own world of play, a sort of collective memory. He's almost channeling the feeling of a shared experience. Cloar's work feels like a conversation, not just with himself but with other artists who’ve tried to capture the messy, beautiful, and complicated experience of being human. It's a reminder that painting is never really finished, that it lives and breathes in the space between the artist, the artwork, and us.