Knitting Needle Holder c. 1936

Janet Riza made this 'Knitting Needle Holder' with who knows what, but I love how the linear marks build up. It looks almost like she was whittling it with color rather than a knife! The colors aren't trying to trick you into thinking this is anything other than a representation. I want to call the color 'earthy' but that’s such a cliché, it reminds me more of when the earth starts to dry out. The point where the moisture leaves and you can kick up dust with your heel. Look at the marks. At first, they seem like an attempt at describing this thing but then you see that it's really about the relationships between the marks themselves. It reminds me of those Wayne Thiebaud cakes—sort of! Each mark has to play with the one next to it, and the overall thing becomes something else. If I look at the end I can see a shadow, it looks like it has been worn down with use. Riza is from the same era as van Gogh and Cézanne. You could say that their shared interest in the underlying structures and rhythms of the world links them together. But actually, this is just what artists *do*. They embrace this weird ambiguity, this play between making and meaning.