The Woman by the Lake

To you, standing before the frame,

A woman stands by a lake inside a frame whose ocher corner is embossed into the paper. This letter comes from an art club in Mexico City, autumn 1920, on cream handmade paper. The title is bold sculptural serif lettering with hand-carved, uneven ink edges. Turquoise and cobalt facets form a carefully composed portrait beside the geometry of the lake. There is a red artist's label and a delicate marigold woodcut edge.

In 1904 a painter wrote to a younger one: "Treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone, everything put into perspective." — Paul Cézanne, letter to Émile Bernard (1904)

So facets are a kind of tenderness: break the world into its simplest shapes, then see what is left inside. Welcome.

From the other side of the frame

Storm Post Office

Autumn 1920 · Mexico City

P.S. Mind the marigolds on the windowsill.