Keys to John Marshall House c. 1937

Edna Rex made this beautiful watercolour, Keys to John Marshall House, at some point in the 20th century. Look at these three keys, lined up like specimens, each rendered in strokes of deep umber and sienna. The artist seems to let the paint flow, to almost find the forms in the material. It's a process of discovery, and the keys emerge from a kind of chromatic haze. You can almost feel the rust on these keys, can’t you? The way Rex uses watercolour gives them an almost sculptural presence. It is almost like she carved the keys, in their worn surfaces and intricate details. Note the key on the left, and its curious, almost serpentine form. There's a wonderful ambiguity here. Are these keys relics of a bygone era, or are they symbols of secrets, waiting to be unlocked? Like, say, Joseph Cornell's boxes, Rex’s keys invite us to unlock our own interpretations. Art-making, like life, is a conversation with the past. It is a conversation full of questions, not answers.