Mirror with Wood Base c. 1937

Curator: Let’s turn our attention to Thomas Holloway's "Mirror with Wood Base," a pencil drawing on paper created around 1937. It strikes me with a sense of calm stillness. What's your initial take? Editor: Immediately, I am struck by how incredibly mundane, yet intensely personal an object a mirror is; here depicted through, what feels like, a loving, albeit academic hand. There is a melancholy mood as though staring into the past and future at once. Curator: Yes, the academic approach is noteworthy. Consider how meticulously Holloway renders the wood grain. He pays close attention to the various forms—the rounded top of the mirror, the swirling base. Note the geometry. Editor: Absolutely, the mirror as portal—for vanity or introspection? This era, pre-war, seems saturated with a feeling of potential catastrophe—and how often, in crisis, do we reach for something seemingly trivial, yet profoundly essential? Curator: Precisely! We must observe the semiotics here; how the mirror reflects the individual. Is this not a direct manifestation of our societal ego, projected through carefully chosen angles, shades and shadowplay, using the available techniques and approaches? Editor: Beyond individual ego, what about collective memory? Mirrors appear in myths across cultures, serving as tools for divination, paths to the underworld... is this drawing intended to simply capture or is it to open some kind of conversation on such symbolic value? Curator: I am hesitant to draw direct parallels. But perhaps we could approach it through Jungian archetypes and understand this reflection as a symbol for how we are projecting idealized versions of our ‘self’ at the time the artwork was produced, by the hand who carefully selected the piece of wood it is made out of and displayed for us as a signifier. Editor: Very interesting. The image is more complex than a seemingly still object, even if created on paper using pencils! Thank you for allowing to engage with a reflection of societal dreams and existential queries embedded in everyday design. Curator: The dialogue was its own looking-glass, then! The artwork has taught us a lot about its forms and our understanding of how it creates meaning, but now it’s time for us to move along and study our next carefully constructed projection.