Apron 1935 - 1942

Nancy Crimi made this drawing of an apron, we don’t know when, but it's a little gem. Look at the way she’s built up that purple color with these tiny, careful lines, like she’s knitting with her pencil. I can imagine her, head bent close to the paper, patiently layering those marks, one by one. It’s so methodical, almost meditative. The rest of the dress is just sketched in lightly, as if the apron is the main event. It’s got this little peek-a-boo moment where the white of the under-dress flashes through. What was she thinking? Was she trying to show how the apron transforms a plain dress? Or maybe she just liked the way the colors played off each other. Then there’s that ghostly outline of another apron floating above, like a memory. Thinking about it, that purple reminds me of other painters like Lois Dodd, who also find ways of looking at the everyday and turning it into something special. It’s like they’re whispering secrets to each other across time. That's what art is all about— a conversation between artists, between us, where nothing is ever really finished.