Weather Vane c. 1936

Elmer G. Anderson made this watercolour drawing of a Weather Vane, but when I don’t know… look at that muted, earthy palette. Imagine Anderson’s hand moving across the page, laying down the soft washes of color, building up this image bit by bit. You know, I wonder what he was thinking about as he worked? Was he thinking about the practical craft of weather vanes, their history, or maybe just the beauty of this particular design? Did he make the weather vane, or did he just draw it? See how the image hovers between representation and abstraction. It’s like Anderson is showing us both the object and the idea of the object at the same time. The muted tones and soft edges give it a timeless quality, like a memory fading into the past, or perhaps it's a premonition of where the wind will blow... It reminds me a bit of Arthur Dove's work – that same sense of distilling form down to its essence. It’s like they’re all in this ongoing conversation, riffing off each other, finding new ways to see the world.