Vajda Lajos .,., 

This drawing, by Lajos Vajda, is made from ink on paper. Rather than the confident marks you might expect in a drawing, the image has been painstakingly built with a network of tiny dots and delicate lines. The artist carefully controlled the ink, allowing it to bleed slightly into the paper's surface, softening the edges of the geometric shapes. This gives the whole composition a dreamlike quality, a sense of something remembered. It's worth considering what it means to spend so long on a work like this. How much labor did it take to produce this drawing? What effect does this labor have on how we understand the image? The pointillist technique speaks to a history of artists who prioritized process and repetition, but also, on a more fundamental level, to a universal experience of slow, incremental work. Paying attention to materials, making, and context encourages us to reconsider art, beyond the familiar and traditional distinctions between high art and craft.