Child's Dress c. 1936

This Child's Dress was drawn by Catherine Fowler, using graphite and colored pencil. The surface of the dress is covered with these itty bitty red flowers and green sprigs which give the sense of being handmade, homemade. The ground of the paper is a light brown colour, almost like old newsprint, and this adds to the sense of this work having been around a while. The line drawing of the dress is very light, almost like the artist is unsure of the lines themselves, and I think that's what makes it work. It's like seeing a dress in a dream, a dress that you might have worn as a child. I'm reminded a bit of the work of Bill Traylor in the way it captures a sense of something worn and loved, the essence of a thing rather than a perfect representation of it. Art's about sharing ideas. I wonder what kind of conversations Fowler and Traylor might have had?