The Talk 

Lucia Heffernan’s painting, *The Talk*, presents rabbits reading ‘The Birds and the Bees’ and seems to be made using traditional materials and techniques. The richness of the painting depends not only on the subject, but the ways in which the work’s material influences its appearance. The artist engages with the history of oil painting, a practice that involves layering the paint for heightened realism. This involves understanding the inherent qualities of substances, textures, weights, colors, and forms. In the final analysis, *The Talk* is a comment on a long history of social issues that have been painted and illustrated using similar techniques, but, that were, for a long period, understood as being in a separate category from the contemporary art world. Recognizing the importance of materials, making, and context, we can begin to understand the full meaning of an artwork and challenge the traditional distinctions between fine art and craft.