Image: Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth
The Amon Carter Museum of American Art has published a new educational feature inviting readers to look for letters and text in works from its collection before creating their own embossed designs with household materials. Titled ‘Print Impressions: Making Art with the Alphabet!’, the blog post was published on July 29, 2026, and focuses on paintings by Stuart Davis and John Frederick Peto.
Presented through the museum’s Carter Blog under its Education category, the feature uses a playful first-person voice attributed to “Prickles,” the Carter’s “resident jackalope.” It begins with an observation that alphabetic forms appear throughout art and everyday life, including painted newspapers, envelope fragments, clippings and large-scale lettering resembling billboards. The post then directs readers to two works credited to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth.
Peto’s ‘A Closet Door’, dated 1904–06, is described as an oil painting that resembles an old green wooden door covered with papers and objects. The blog identifies a key, a portrait of George Washington, a horseshoe, folded and torn papers, books and the artist’s name within the composition. Its discussion emphasizes the small-scale words and printed fragments embedded in the image, connecting them to the visual experience of looking closely at accumulated documents and ephemera.
The second work, Davis’s ‘Blips and Ifs’, dates from 1963–64. The feature links its bold lettering and vivid colours to the signs and billboards of the city, describing the painting as a work filled with words and letters for readers to find. The museum’s artist page identifies Davis as a pioneer of abstraction in the United States whose dynamic compositions captured the energy of modern consumer society.
‘Blips and Ifs’ also has a particular place in the Carter’s collecting history. According to the museum, the large-scale canvas was the first abstract painting acquired for its collection, joining works on paper by Georgia O’Keeffe, John Marin and artists associated with the Tamarind Lithography Workshop. The Carter has since expanded its holdings of Davis’s paintings, drawings and prints, including a complete set of his graphic art acquired from the artist’s estate in 1984.
After introducing the two paintings, the blog provides a step-by-step activity using aluminum foil, cardboard, a soft sponge or paintbrush and toy letters or numbers. Participants arrange the letters on a towel or placemat, place foil over the design and gently press the surface to reveal the forms. Optional materials include Wikki Stix, twine, toothpicks, wire and small toys; the finished foil sheet can be glued to cardboard and coloured with paint or markers. The post does not announce an exhibition or event, but offers an online activity connected to works in the museum’s collection.
