Feist’s alchemical inclination lingered in his art. He was, according to his elder son, Ben, never exactly precious with his titles, lists of which can be found in the pages of his sketchbooks, suggesting something more like a pre-show brainstorming session than a precise naming ritual. Still, it’s hard to consider choices like Druid Board and not get pulled into mystical thoughts, or see the flexed, intersecting lines in Crow without also seeing an elemental animal. The vein of modernism Feist would ultimately mine for the spoke variations that define his mature work may have had no problem rejecting all but the most analytical readings of works of art, but he was always working against his own romantic inclinations. “It’s not ironic that those who look at paintings the best and who write about art the best are those who rarely use words such as ‘magic,’” he wrote in an undated essay found among his papers. “Those who keep their attention focused squarely on the work and who police their own potential wanderings off into life and its romance or tragedy or pain or triumph or lyricism.” Ironic because it was the magic that pulled him into painting in the first place. Police because that’s what he had to do, to keep himself from getting pulled back there.