Chest c. 1939

Grace Bolser made this drawing of a chest, but we don’t know when, or why. I like the colour of the wood, so pale it's almost grey. It reminds me of bleached driftwood, the kind you find on windswept beaches. I can almost smell the salt air, can you? You can imagine her, pencil in hand, thinking hard about the shape, getting every line just so. It’s not a fancy chest, but it’s solid. Someone must have treasured it once. I wonder what was kept inside. Letters? Photographs? The artist’s drawing of this chest feels like a record of human use, like folk art. It makes me think about other artists who have looked hard at furniture, like the simple chairs Van Gogh painted, or the wonky tables in a Cezanne still-life. All these artists talk to one another across time. They make me want to get in the studio and start painting right away.