Rag Doll Bodice c. 1936

Cecily Edwards made this watercolor painting of a doll; we don't know when exactly, but she lived a long life, from 1855 to 1995. It's interesting because, like a lot of folk art, the process feels really upfront. The doll’s dress has these vertical lines, almost like pleats, that are built up with thin washes of brown watercolor. If you look closely, you can see that they’re not perfectly uniform, there’s this kind of charming irregularity to them. The trim on the dress is really intricate, like a row of tiny, bejeweled hearts. It feels like Edwards was trying to capture the textures and patterns of real fabric, but in this slightly flattened, simplified way. The doll itself has this elongated neck and these tiny, delicate arms that hang kind of awkwardly. The whole thing has this handmade, slightly imperfect quality that gives it so much character. I see a connection with someone like Forrest Bess, another artist who worked outside the mainstream and developed their own unique visual language. Both Edwards and Bess remind us that art doesn't always have to be polished or perfect to be deeply moving and meaningful.