English Embroidery 1935 - 1942

Curator: We're looking at a pencil drawing by Carl Buergerniss entitled "English Embroidery," made sometime between 1935 and 1942. Editor: The delicate quality strikes me immediately, the subtle tonal shifts, how the soft graphite captures the light playing across the material. Curator: Absolutely. What's interesting to consider is how Buergerniss, through drawing, is engaging with a craft traditionally associated with women and domesticity. We can ask ourselves about the ways gender and labor intersect with the decorative arts. Editor: Right. I find myself wondering about the labor behind both the original embroidery and its depiction here. Think of the time and skill it would have taken to create the piece in the first place – those repeated floral and geometric motifs meticulously stitched, and then replicated through the meticulous lines of a drawing. It speaks to value placed, and also sometimes unplaced on handmade items. Curator: Precisely, we must recognize these items are more than purely decoration. Buergerniss provides the work with a fresh context, and offers a glimpse into its cultural meaning. Was this embroidery intended for personal use, or perhaps a commission for something greater? What statement did this embellishment intend to make? Editor: And how does translating embroidery into a drawing impact our understanding of the object itself? Is it about preserving a fading tradition, or about elevating craft to the level of fine art? There’s a fascinating dialogue here between the handmade and the mechanically reproduced, the tactile and the visual. Curator: Ultimately, this drawing invites us to consider the stories woven into everyday objects, and the gendered divisions of artistic and creative labor that shape our understanding of art. Editor: Yes, it makes you reconsider all that lies within those seemingly simple loops, lines and shapes. A reminder that everything has material origin and has been touched by labor of some sort.