Ontwerpen voor het onderstel van een tafel c. 1906

Carel Adolph Lion Cachet made these designs for a table base with pencil on paper. This piece has the feeling of a notebook, an open space for working through ideas. You can almost see the ghost of other marks underneath, where lines have been erased and redrawn as the design shifts and comes into being. It’s a very intimate thing, to look at someone’s working sketches. The lines are tentative, searching. I imagine Cachet hunched over the paper, feeling the pressure of needing to solve a practical problem, and the creative desire to make something beautiful, or at least interesting. There’s something very vulnerable about showing the world your process, your moments of uncertainty. But it's also an invitation into the artist’s mind. I feel like I’m there with Cachet, participating in the act of creation. And when I look at this piece, I think about all the other artists who have sat at tables, sketching and dreaming, and how we’re all connected through this shared experience.