Shift: pattern 1935 - 1942

This is a pencil on paper, dress pattern, simply titled ‘Shift: pattern’. There's something about the quietness of this work that really speaks to me. I imagine someone carefully drafting, erasing, redrawing, maybe muttering to themselves. The artist is an anonymous maker, but I like to imagine them at work, thinking about the body, about movement, about the way fabric drapes and folds. These shapes are so intimate, like secret codes. I am thinking about what it must be like to design clothes for someone. I respond to the delicate quality of the lines, the precision, the way the artist seems to be mapping out a whole world with just a few strokes. And how patterns shift over time, like a painter's style, each mark a gesture, a moment of decision, all connecting. It makes me think about all the other artists, past and present, who are working away in their own studios, wrestling with similar questions, speaking to one another across time and space.