Carpet Bag c. 1937

Editor: Here we have Mary Berner's "Carpet Bag," created around 1937. It looks like a mixed media piece with watercolor and colored pencil, depicting fabric swatches. The detail is just incredible, almost photorealistic. What symbolic significance do you see in these patterns? Curator: The patterns themselves seem drawn from Baroque sensibilities: those swirling, rose-like forms hint at a kind of opulence now faded. The fragments are potent; remnants of memory, wouldn't you say? Each curl and shaded fold speaks of histories once intertwined, now isolated on the page. What emotions arise when you look at these abstracted textile studies? Editor: There's a sense of nostalgia, a longing for something intricate and maybe a little extravagant, something that time has worn down, even made fragile. Curator: Exactly. Think about carpet bags themselves—emblematic of travel, of journeys undertaken, and all that one chooses to carry with them. What is held becomes significant. Are these fabric samples perhaps, placeholders for the idea of domesticity and status, of a carefully curated identity packed up and carried forth? The muted colors echo that past too, don’t they? Editor: So, it's not just about the visual, but about the stories embedded in the everyday objects that shape our lives and memories? Curator: Precisely! Berner seems to be capturing a cultural echo through these forgotten textiles. She explores the iconography embedded in these domestic artifacts and its influence in our memories. Editor: I never would have thought of reading so much into what seems, at first glance, like just fabric samples. It's amazing how an artist can make the ordinary resonate with such depth. Curator: And that resonance, that layering of meaning and cultural memory, is precisely the iconographer’s fascination! It reveals the endurance and relevance of visual stories, even in the smallest of things.