Hat Box 1935 - 1942

Curator: This piece really throws me for a loop. It's so wonderfully bizarre. Editor: Bizarre is one word for Frank McEntee's "Hat Box," dating from somewhere between 1935 and 1942. What's striking to me is its whimsical depiction of industry alongside these archaic forms of production, almost as though juxtaposing the old and the new to reflect shifting social norms. Curator: Exactly! The whole scene is rendered on, well, a hat box! The "Rail Road of Wind Mill" sign…it's charmingly nonsensical. And those chunky little horse-drawn carts—there's something almost theatrical about it all. Editor: The very medium – a utilitarian object elevated through art – speaks volumes about the democratizing potential of art, about imbuing the everyday with beauty and commentary. Notice, too, how the architecture almost blends into the landscape on the lid; these castles situated among natural forms blur the boundaries of the built and the natural environment. It can be said that they function almost like social allegories in conversation. Curator: And the colours! This pastel blue dreamscape. It evokes a memory more than a place. It’s like childhood, if childhood was spent inside a folk tale about transport and power. It brings me a nostalgic sort of glee, this naive landscape drawing rendered on a cardboard hat box. Editor: Glee perhaps tinged with the somber understanding of industrial change. Even the materiality plays into this dichotomy. We find a poignant beauty here—but also this tension that asks us to grapple with class and industrial growth in ways that I see mirrored even in our current techtopia. Curator: I hadn't quite considered that specific through line to our own moment! Perhaps the artist was suggesting this "folksy-ness" wouldn’t, couldn't last for long given the pull and pace of inevitable change? Editor: Precisely. And while there’s so much to ponder still, perhaps it would be wise for us to let the listeners unpack this piece a bit more. Curator: Agreed. Time to close the hatbox!