Door Handle c. 1937

Curator: Here we have Mildred Ford’s pencil and graphite drawing, "Door Handle," created around 1937. It's such an intimate rendering. Editor: You know, seeing this now, I’m struck by its strange beauty. Like a ghostly key to a forgotten realm. So industrial but the pencilwork gives it an antique sensibility that seems to yearn for another purpose. Curator: I think it's important to acknowledge how objects like a door handle, often relegated to the background of our attention, are laden with social meaning. A door, and by extension the handle, signifies access, exclusion, and the negotiation of public and private space. Consider, too, who historically had the privilege of passing through certain doors and who was barred. Editor: It's amazing how an everyday object can have all this symbolic weight. I keep seeing almost alchemical symbols here in its details. The teardrop shapes are pointing the way inward, or outward depending on your perspective. It definitely calls into question the function, while the decorative bits seem to signal wealth, ownership, privilege, and perhaps even power? Curator: Absolutely. We can unpack the symbolism further by examining the material itself. The likely iron, typically associated with working-class environments and functional items, in contrast with the flourish it actually takes. Is the image reflecting the impact of gender roles of the time on the function of what makes up design itself, when industrial aspects where more associated with one role and the fine art rendering with another. Editor: Yes! Or it’s subverting those ideas of feminine touch. There's real strength in the starkness and simplicity of the shape. It makes me wonder who would have touched it and their stories. Curator: Reflecting on Ford’s drawing, I think it reminds us that even the most mundane objects hold stories about power, access, and the social structures that shape our lives. Editor: It's an amazing piece of history captured through such careful observation. I know now, for sure, I’ll be noticing all those neglected door handles I breeze past. Thanks for this dive into a new perspective on something I took for granted.