Infant's Dress Yoke and Mull Cup 1936

Here's Ella Josephine Sterling's drawing of an Infant's Dress Yoke and Mull Cup, done with pencil and watercolor. You can see a real attention to detail, an array of possible embellishments, each one a little different. I imagine Sterling, born in 1855, maybe sitting by a window, light streaming in, as she conjures these tiny garments and adornments. What was she thinking as she was rendering them, each little stitch and frill? Was it a labor of love, a meditation on craft, or maybe even a business proposition? There’s such care in the lines, especially in the details of the lace and the embroidery, where the patterns twist and turn into floral shapes. It makes me think about the work of women, and of the hours and patience it takes to create something beautiful and useful. You know, so much of art is like that – it's about taking the time to really see, and then to translate that vision into something tangible. And in the act of making, we're all kind of in conversation with each other. Like, I look at this, and then I want to go make something myself.