Boston Harbor 1918

Philip Little's "Boston Harbor" is a small print, delicate, almost gray, with the feeling of a memory. I can imagine Little standing there, bundled up, maybe a little damp, trying to capture the busy-ness of the harbor in these tiny marks. I love to think about the process of printmaking. Each line is so intentional, so permanent. There is a feeling that each mark has to count. I wonder what it felt like to etch those lines, the smell of the acid, the pressure of the tool. How does the artist decide what to leave in and what to take out? It makes me think about Whistler and the idea of tonalism, but here it feels less about atmosphere and more about the real grit of the working harbor. It's like Little is showing us the pulse of the city, not just a pretty view. And you can see how it would be just a hop skip and a jump to abstraction, playing with tonal values and marks, it is all just there waiting to happen.