Dress Up Party

Size: 9 1/4" x 13 1/8"
Medium: Pigment Print
Date: 2016
Edition Size: 250

What’s dress up time without playing with mom’s jewelry? This silhouette profiles an anonymous and ubiquitous archetype of a young Victorian girl. These cutting portraits generally in profile from black card became popular in the Victorian mid-18th century. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the backgrounds are usually white.

This design captures a literary spirit of the tradition of these cut out portraits.The girl is placed on a fresh chevron background in a swirl of peach, green and yellow hues. The paper is produced in the same method as marbled paper seen in the book bindings from fine antique books, called Ebru, from Turkey. Ebru is made by first dropping ink onto water and placing paper on top of the water to imprint the ink on paper. The jewelry contains hematite and red lace agate suggesting the girl is drawn to these stones not for their beauty rather because they are from a far off land. The black stone is hematite which holds metaphysical qualities that protect, and the white stone is red lace agate, said to uplift the spirit.