Embroidered Velvet Vest c. 1937

Majel G. Claflin painted this image of an embroidered velvet vest, sometime between 1893 and 1941, in Taos, New Mexico. Look at the image, it’s all about the leaves scattered across the surface of the garment. I can almost feel the softness of the velvet and imagine her hand moving across the cloth, carefully placing each leaf to create a pattern that's both ordered and random. I think this could be watercolour. You can sense the way she layered the paint to build up the colour and create depth. Painting is all about seeing, but it’s also about feeling, too. Maybe she thought she was painting just a vest, but she was really painting a moment in time, a feeling, or a memory. You know, maybe she was thinking about who might have worn this vest, what their life was like, and how they moved through the world. It makes you wonder about the conversations artists have with one another, across time and space, through the simple act of painting.