Visiting Dress 1935 - 1942

Nancy Crimi made this watercolor painting of a "Visiting Dress" sometime in the 20th century. What I like is how she’s got these two worlds—the specificity of fashion design and the looseness of watercolor—colliding in one picture. You get this ghostly white dress, trimmed with a vivid red. It’s flat but with hints of depth, you could imagine it hanging there, ready for a body. I wonder what Crimi was thinking as she painted each brushstroke? There’s a real tension between the precise, almost technical drawing of the dress's form and the way the watercolor bleeds and blends, creating soft edges, delicate textures, and subtle color transitions. It’s almost like she was making her own version of a dress design. And in that sense, it reminds me that art is always a conversation, a back-and-forth between seeing, feeling, and doing. Each artwork is like a visiting dress, full of possibilities, waiting to be worn.