Coon in the Corn Patch c. 20th century

Editor: Here we have Ella Fillmore Lillie's "Coon in the Corn Patch," a lithograph, dating from around the 20th century, and something about the texture created by the medium feels so perfectly suited to capturing the scraggly corn stalks and furry little raccoon. It feels very… intimate. What do you see in this piece? Curator: Intimate, yes, precisely! I see a sort of dance, a silent choreography between the human-cultivated landscape, represented by the corn, and the wildness embodied by our masked bandit there. It makes me wonder about the artist's own relationship with nature. Are we observers, or are we implicated in this ongoing story of co-existence... or perhaps, of taking? It's a curious question isn't it – what's he thinking? Is he hungry, curious, scared? I find it hard not to give him human feelings. Editor: I never thought about the ‘dance’ between nature and culture. So the raccoon is peering back at the viewer...does that have some greater purpose or is it just showing how it got there. Curator: Well, I think it gives him agency. He's not just a subject being observed, he's returning our gaze, making us confront our role in his world, his corn patch! But hey, maybe Lillie just thought it would make a cute print. But is art ever *just* anything, truly? Even the 'simplest' depictions are a little bit autobiographical. A lot. Or everything, maybe. Editor: So, even something that seems straightforward has these hidden depths, I wonder how many I have missed looking at art! Curator: Indeed. Each work is a door...now you get to chose the entrance into new dimensions of looking at things.