Doll and Dress c. 1937

Mary E. Humes made this watercolor and graphite 'Doll and Dress' on paper, and I wonder what it was like for her to work with such simple materials to make something so enchanting. I imagine her, maybe as a girl herself, carefully laying down washes of blue, patiently building up the form of the doll's dress. The graphite lines are so delicate, they remind me of dressmaking patterns—that separate sketch in the upper left, for instance, is like a little ghost of the dress to come. That blue is just gorgeous, isn't it? It's like a faded memory, or a childhood dream. There’s a tentative quality, as if she’s feeling her way through it. Looking at the doll’s rosy cheeks, I'm reminded that painting, like play, is a way of trying things out, a form of embodied expression that embraces ambiguity and gives us room for our own readings.