Zoe's Dresser
1990 Oil on Linen 48x48” $15,000
This was what I saw upon waking up in the morning in studio 205 at Fenway Studios, Zoe’s dresser.
Zoe got this dresser when her family took it off the street (someone was throwing it away) when she was a girl growing up in the South End in the 1970s. The mirror was a great mirror (we still have it) with no distortion. While lying on our bed one day, I wondered what stories that dresser and mirror could tell. Then I realized, just like bumper stickers on cars, one could tell all kinds of things about the owner just from what was on it and around it. I decided to try to tell that story, about all that the dresser could tell about Zoe, and us, and our little studio in Fenway Studios.
Some people find things I didn’t notice myself; in fact you may point something out we didn’t notice. There are many things in this painting that suggest more than what is there. Like the fact that I have more shoes in the painting than Zoe. But as I tell people who notice this, that may be because she doesn’t put her shoes away. In fact, her sister, Bindy, pointed out that a neat dresser wasn’t what she remembered Zoe’s dresser looking like. So everyone has their comments.
