China Closet

Editor: Here we have Grace Bolser’s “China Closet,” created around 1940. It appears to be a pencil drawing on paper. I'm struck by the detailed realism, but also its lack of context – just this lone cabinet floating on the page. What stands out to you? Curator: What jumps out at me is precisely what you noted: it's a drawing, but it depicts furniture, an object rooted in the domestic sphere and industrial production. Why render it in pencil, a relatively accessible and readily available material? Bolser seemingly elevates a manufactured good to the level of art through careful rendering. Editor: So, you're saying the choice of medium transforms how we view an everyday object? Curator: Exactly. Consider the date, around 1940. Mass production was increasingly shaping daily life. By painstakingly recreating the "China Closet" by hand, Bolser highlights the labor and craft involved in producing such a common piece of furniture, and makes us consider the socio-economic factors, like wartime scarcity, that could be embedded in domestic scenes and items at the time. How would a pencil drawing change people’s perspectives when they probably purchased their furniture from catalogs and department stores? Editor: I never considered the contrast between the mass-produced object and the handmade image of it. So, she’s using drawing not to mimic reality, but to make us aware of the reality *behind* the object? Curator: Precisely! And isn't that the core of the materialist perspective – to understand art not in isolation, but within its network of production, consumption, and labor? Perhaps Bolser also intended a bit of critique regarding consumerism as she elevated common labor. Editor: That makes the drawing much more interesting to me. I initially just saw a nice rendering, but now I understand the social implications baked into her choices. Curator: Indeed, we've gone beyond surface appearance to analyze the confluence of object, method and materiality and see her critical consideration.