How Doth the Little Busy Bee 

Curator: Jessie Willcox Smith created this work titled "How Doth the Little Busy Bee," a watercolour illustration in a style evocative of the Arts and Crafts movement. Editor: It strikes me immediately as an intimate, almost secretive scene. The limited palette creates a quiet mood, intensified by the girl's absorbed expression. Curator: Smith employs a soft, diffused light, achieved through her watercolour technique, which flattens the pictorial space and directs the eye to the figure and her craft. Editor: Looking closer, the emphasis seems to be on the materiality of domesticity. We have the textile she is mending, the full basket, the spool of thread…each an element of production and the work inherent in making and maintaining. Curator: Absolutely, and consider the gaze. Our sightlines mimic hers, focusing down into the act of mending; but above her are those other children looking on; it invites analysis through the composition. It reminds one of certain strains of Intimism. Editor: And the dolls, a captive audience of consumers maybe? Or are they also the subjects of her labor; her care and attention poured into them through acts of mending? Curator: A keen insight. Smith captures this sense of naive earnestness. What of the narrative itself? What does she seek to say with this piece? Editor: Perhaps its a meditation on early development, labor and play blending together. It acknowledges the social framework that young girls in particular were woven into at that time. Curator: Fascinating how the simplicity of the scene belies such complex thematic elements when put to semiotic investigation. Editor: True, viewing "How Doth the Little Busy Bee" through a materialist lens unveils how intertwined labor and domesticity were, forming the bedrock of both art and society.