Shelf Clock 1935 - 1942

Editor: This is "Shelf Clock," a colored pencil drawing made between 1935 and 1942 by Francis Law Durand. It's incredibly detailed, especially considering the medium. I’m struck by how realistically the artist rendered the wood grain and decorative elements. What catches your eye in this work? Curator: I see a meticulous record of material culture. Consider the wood itself, likely a prized hardwood, crafted into this specific form of time-telling technology meant for display. The colored pencil, readily available, becomes a tool not for fine art but for documentation of objects meant to be desired and acquired, objects tied to societal notions of progress, time management, and social standing. What does it say about labor that this artisan clock – or representation of it – exists? Editor: That's fascinating. It almost feels like a proto-catalog image. So you're saying the *making* of this image mirrors the commodification of the clock itself? Curator: Precisely. The artist becomes a kind of factory, mass-producing, not physical clocks, but rather replications, using an affordable art supply and medium to disseminate. We’re not dealing with high art here, but with the illustration of potential purchases, feeding a system. What choices were involved in what the picture sells? Editor: I never thought about art as part of that whole economic process... like it’s also promoting an object and the idea of owning something similar. It is like selling time itself! I appreciate seeing that connection. Curator: And that's the beauty of materialist analysis. It allows us to question the purpose and power inherent not just in "art," but the broader visual culture around us. To explore making as it's deeply related to selling.