Cross Necklace 1935 - 1942

Curator: Let's turn our attention to a piece entitled "Cross Necklace", a drawing and watercolor, including a pendant, created by Tulita Westfall between 1935 and 1942. What’s your take as you look at it? Editor: Well, there's an appealing simplicity about it, and yet I'm also seeing how a hand drawing of what could be precious jewelry allows the artist to play with our assumptions. Curator: Play is exactly the right word. To me, there's a sense of both the decorative and the devotional intertwined in this pendant study. What about you? What's grabbing your eye in terms of the materials presented here? Editor: The drawing foregrounds design, the work of the artist. Westfall has placed this handmade, perhaps mass-produced, golden cross on a chain against a white background, in simple drawing techniques accessible to everyone. It’s no anonymous sacred object. Curator: That touches on something vital about design: how the everyday object aspires to something greater. I'm struck by how she renders the textures. The cool darkness of the cross is beautifully set against that shimmer of gold in the chain and mountings. Does that juxtaposition mean anything to you? Editor: I'm pondering if it is an artifact representing, through material form, religious oppression... a sort of dark cross... but presented in a mode of aspiration by virtue of her stylish depiction of what remains a beautiful if complicated object. It suggests an economy and process of value-making. Curator: Value is in the eye, isn't it? Whether it’s religious or artistic. I can also feel the presence of the hand that conceived it. Does knowing its date adds something, don’t you think? Editor: Yes, locating its moment helps contextualize it historically. Consider how material practices of fashion and display intersect with religious and personal beliefs of the time. It’s fascinating. Curator: It really is. Well, reflecting on “Cross Necklace” I have considered both the artist's spiritual investigation, if any, and this little piece's surprising power to communicate ideas about craftsmanship and devotion. Editor: Yes, seeing the necklace reimagined, through the drawn, rethinks our perception of it—considering design and fashion history in an early modern light.