Pants c. 1920

This pair of orange pants in the Minneapolis Institute of Art were made by an anonymous maker and could be seen as a kind of folk art. The colour is so vibrant, like a creamsicle! Looking at the material, you see the way the fabric is folded and the creases that are embedded into the material. It’s easy to imagine the hours spent at the sewing machine, and the care the maker took in each stitch. I wonder who wore them and where they have been. Imagine a lifetime of movement embedded in these seams. I love how the wrinkles and folds remind us of our own bodies, and how cloth can take on a life of its own. It reminds me a little of the clothing sculptures of Franz Erhard Walther, which also ask us to reconsider the relationship between bodies, art, and the everyday. Art invites us to see things differently, and even a simple pair of pants can become a portal to another world.