Wedding Coin Purse c. 1937

This is Ellen Duncan's 'Wedding Coin Purse', but we don't know when she made it, or even what with. Ellen Duncan, born in 1855, spent decades of her life in the state asylum for the insane in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she created hundreds of artworks on paper. Just imagine Ellen, carefully working away on these images while institutionalized! I wonder about her intentions and the context of her artistic practice. This piece is strange and lovely. Two hat-like objects—one upright and one floating— rendered with a kind of obsessive, tender detailing. The artist's hand painstakingly tracing and filling in these forms has this incredible energy. I am reminded of Forrest Bess, who also worked outside the art world, making visionary paintings in isolation that have inspired so many. It makes you think of the exchange between artists, this ongoing conversation across time. I feel like I am looking at an artist finding her own language for representing what she sees in the world.