West Texas Rail Station 1938

Jerry Bywaters made this lithograph, West Texas Rail Station, in 1933. It’s all in shades of grey and black, and there’s something so powerful about limiting yourself like that. It makes you really pay attention to the shapes and forms. The texture is key, you know? Look at the sky, how it’s not just a flat wash but filled with these tiny, nervous strokes. That’s the hand of the artist right there, wrestling with the world, trying to pin it down. And then you see the solid black of the station, so definite and sure, but surrounded by all this wavering uncertainty. It makes you think about what we hold onto and what slips through our fingers. The clouds have this openness that reminds me of Marsden Hartley's skies. Like Hartley, Bywaters captures the spirit of place, not just what it looks like, but what it feels like to be there. And that, for me, is what art’s all about – not just seeing, but feeling.