Card Table 1936

This is a drawing by Jack Carr, made sometime in the 20th century, that offers a peek into design and planning. You can see these delicate lines that create this blueprint-like image, a gentle, precise mapping of form and function of a 'Card Table'. I’m thinking about Carr as he made this, pencil in hand. The careful scaling on display; the way he uses the pencil to describe, resolve, and reimagine. He’s not just drawing a table, but thinking through its every dimension. He’s really seeing the thing. It’s not so different from painting. In both, there’s an act of translation: taking an idea, a vision, and working through material to realize it. The lines and notations are not unlike brushstrokes, each one a decision, a step in the process of making something new. I think of painters like Giorgio Morandi, who, through subtle variations, managed to turn simple bottles into monumental studies of form and light. Carr, too, is doing something similar, finding endless possibility in the humble card table. It’s about seeing, thinking, and making, each feeding the other, an ongoing conversation across time.