Old Dresser c. 1936

Mary E. Humes made this drawing of an old dresser, but we don't know when or with what media. You can almost see her sketching, trying to capture the dresser's essence with those flowing lines. What's she thinking about as she recreates the dresser in two dimensions? I'm thinking about how each line, each carefully rendered detail, tells a story—the story of the dresser itself, worn smooth by years of use, but also the story of Humes capturing it in the form of a drawing. I'm particularly drawn to how she captures the wood grain on the drawers. You can almost feel the texture, the history etched into the surface. It’s like she is not just rendering an object, but also imbuing it with her own memories and reflections, like other painter-thinkers such as Fairfield Porter. It feels like a conversation between Humes, the dresser, and us, the viewers.