Bonnet c. 1936

This is Bessie Forman’s ‘Bonnet’ drawing, made with watercolor on paper. It’s a rendering of a puffy bonnet, like a cloud made of fabric, and it's got these little dark bows pinned all over, which, wow, is something else. The texture here is amazing, right? Each square of the bonnet is filled with tiny dots, giving it a pillowy, almost three-dimensional effect. The way Forman uses color is subtle; it's all soft creams and browns, except for those ribbons. Look at how she meticulously outlines each ribbon edge with these tiny stitches. You can practically feel the softness of the fabric, the little imperfections of the handmade. It reminds me of some of the obsessive detailing you see in outsider art, where the process becomes meditative. I think of a piece by someone like, say, Agnes Martin, where repetition creates a kind of quiet intensity. It's all about how art can be an ongoing conversation, a back-and-forth between what we see and how we make it.