Dress c. 1937

Lillian Causey made this watercolor rendering of a dress, shawl, and bonnet sometime in the 20th century. The dress is pale, pristine, like a memory. The shawl and bonnet are rendered with softer, darker tones, like shadows or half-formed thoughts. I can imagine Lillian Causey, decades after the dress was worn, lovingly and meticulously recreating its image on paper. Perhaps it was a family heirloom, a relic of a bygone era? Was it a dress she knew well, a garment from her own past? Her brushstrokes are gentle, almost reverent. See how the dress is presented without a body to fill it. Instead, the dress becomes a kind of stand-in, a ghostly apparition, both there and not there. Lillian Causey's quiet touch reminds us that paintings, like memories, are often incomplete, fragmented, and deeply personal. Her work is a reminder that every artwork is always involved in a conversation with the past.