Servet met dessin haantjes 1888 - 1945

This napkin with a rooster design was created by Chris Lebeau, but its date is unknown. The roosters repeat around the edge, a grey pattern on a white ground. I like how the image suggests the possibility of a kind of factory labor. An industrial feel, in terms of repetition, but something more personal too. The repeated image is so clearly hand drawn. I get the feeling that he might have been thinking about the paradoxes of industrial design. Can something retain its handmade feel when it's been designed for mass production? This napkin invites us to think about the beauty that can arise from constraints and limitations. The artist has taken a mundane, functional object and transformed it into something special and maybe even a bit subversive. And the conversation continues…