Child's High Chair c. 1938

Curator: This is Cora Parker's "Child's High Chair," likely made around 1938. It’s rendered with watercolor and pencil. The texture looks quite tangible; you can almost feel the grain of the wood. Editor: There's a profound sense of stillness about it. The chair feels both present and somehow ghostly, like a lingering memory. I wonder about its symbolic weight. Curator: Well, looking at it from the standpoint of process, the work’s title leads directly into a discourse on functionality, and this image, while beautiful in its own way, removes the functionality, but memorializes a manufactured object, something both hand-crafted and mass produced. Editor: Yes, it’s charged with a certain visual symbolism –the empty high chair, the absent child. This object embodies nostalgia, innocence, maybe even a hint of abandonment. Consider its connection to domesticity, motherhood… It’s loaded with cultural associations. Curator: Absolutely. And it’s presented simply; this ordinary object elevates itself. You see a focus on craftsmanship here: how each joint fits together, how the wood’s turned and shaped, details easy to gloss over with an object you’d see and use every day, especially during that time period. Editor: Exactly, it also speaks to cyclical notions: birth, growth, absence. The high chair is such a potent emblem of a specific phase of life, a visual marker in the ever-turning wheel. It reminds us of generational passage, doesn't it? It makes me wonder about the original owner, if the artist meant to symbolize more than just a passing stage. Curator: That said, the means by which it's made really does underscore the simplicity and functionality of the chair itself, doesn't it? No heavy strokes or vibrant colors distracting you, so that makes the emotional context feel all the more important. Editor: Yes, it brings it all together quite poignantly. This isn't just a chair, it's a vessel carrying generations of stories. Curator: It's an interesting tension, focusing on production as symbolic of childhood. Editor: I agree; it brings so much more nuance to how we see our own memories represented.