Coffee Mill c. 1940

Carl Buergerniss made this drawing of a coffee mill with what looks like watercolor on paper. I can imagine Buergerniss sitting and staring at this object, and it's a thing of such ordinariness but so fascinating to record. And it's like, what does it mean to spend your time doing this? Is it a love of the craft? He pays such close attention to the detail of the handle, to the shiny metal lid. And the boxy shape and the wood grain feel so solid, like it could sit there forever. I think about the act of translation here, the coffee grinder translated onto paper and then translated again into our own understanding. It gives the mundane a new life, I suppose that's what we're all trying to do in the studio.