Technique Demo (Jacquard Coverlet) c. 1941

William Paul Childers made this "Technique Demo (Jacquard Coverlet)" at an unknown date. It looks like a proposal for fabric that is at once a complete image, and a demonstration of something else. I love the way the upper part is more pronounced, as if he’s saying, “Here’s what it could be,” before it slowly disappears into a kind of ghostly vision of the whole cloth. Look at the loose weave! He’s playing with visibility, like paint that is both there and not there. You can see Childers working out how the image will resolve itself through the grid. The ghostly drawing is quite beautiful, like Agnes Martin on a bender. The more solid blocks of colour feel like a test for a bolder, perhaps coarser design, but the whole thing is so delicate, a real meditation on what can be seen, and what remains unseen. It’s an invitation, really, to consider the infinite possibilities within a single, woven surface.