Child's Desk c. 1937

Editor: This is Ernest Busenbark's "Child's Desk," made around 1937, rendered in watercolor. It feels so...sturdy. And brown. It's a bit severe for something associated with childhood. What symbolic reading can you give it? Curator: Brown evokes the earth, certainly. And desks are thresholds to knowledge, authority, perhaps the patriarchal structure itself. Does this small desk suggest indoctrination? Editor: Indoctrination, wow. I was just thinking it's a serious little desk for serious little work. Do the drawer pulls say anything to you? Curator: The hardware is intriguing. See how they repeat? Like stylized blossoms. They soften the desk's otherwise rigid geometry, hinting at growth, potential...or perhaps femininity carefully positioned to offset all that authority? Think of the visual balance created, it’s almost an emblem of the era's domestic ideology. Editor: That’s interesting, so the artist maybe subverts that expectation? Or is he complicit with it? Curator: Precisely. By using those floral pulls he could be both criticizing and perpetuating the stereotype of women in the household. I suppose that is what is thought-provoking! How visual emblems can suggest many things. Editor: I didn't see the femininity at all. Now that you point it out, it's inescapable. I’ll have to rethink my approach. Thank you for bringing that to my attention! Curator: My pleasure! It is in these subtle contrasts and re-readings where art continues to live.