Dress c. 1938

Nancy Crimi’s ‘Dress’ is an intriguing image, made with watercolor and graphite on paper. It's like Crimi was playing with the ghost of fashion, sketching a dress that seems both present and absent. I can imagine her process, the quiet focus of laying down those delicate graphite lines, then flooding the space with translucent layers of brown watercolor. There's a precision to the lacework, a dedication to detail that speaks to patience, but also a kind of dreaminess in the way the dress floats against the blank page. Look closely, and you’ll notice how the color creates the dress and the form, like a shadow or an aura. It reminds me of the way other artists like Yves Saint Laurent would sketch designs, dreaming up the possibilities of form and color on the body. What could it mean to envision the dress like this? To create an impression or suggestion of form rather than something solid.