Dress 1935 - 1942

Mary Berner made this drawing of a dress, we don’t know when, with graphite and colored pencil on paper. It’s all soft lines and gentle shading, mostly pinks and whites. I can imagine her, maybe in a quiet room, focused intently on the details of the dress. Maybe she was thinking about the woman who would wear it, or maybe she was just lost in the process of rendering the folds and frills. There’s a care in the rendering of each pleat, each bit of lace. The way she uses the colored pencil feels so deliberate, building up the form slowly, almost tenderly. The hatched lines create form, and the colors are pale, like an memory. There’s also a little sketch of the dress, like she was trying to get it just right. It reminds me of those studies you see artists making, like they’re feeling their way into a subject. In its own way, it’s as alive as a portrait. Artists, we're always looking at each other, borrowing, and responding. It’s one big conversation, a game of telephone! And it’s never about getting it ‘right’, but about keeping the conversation going.