Jack Sprat would eat no fat
His wife would eat no lean
And so between the two of them
They licked the platter clean.
I love Lucienne Day’s interpretation of this classic symbiotic tale on a dish towel. Day reduces the form of Jack and his wife to simple geometric shapes and patterns. She further emphasizes form with colored blocks left-of-center, allowing heads and appendages to break free of the borders. Jack’s spindliness is restated with a thin grey rectangle. His portly wife (unfortunately nameless but appearing unaffected.---happy even) receives a tangerine square. Their relationship is symbolized when their representative colors intertwine on one single dinner plate. Happy relationships are usually represented by a clichéd heart. I love how Day uses a dinner plate as an unconventional symbol of love between a chubby lady and her balding man. Jack shrugs as if to say, “whatever works!”
I first became aware of British textile artist Lucienne Day when visiting the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center exhibition, "Designing Women of Postwar Britain." For more information on this exhibition, visit the website here.
No comments:
Post a Comment