Lace is protective and seductive, nostalgic and nasty. I met with Jack Lemon, the director of Landfall Press, in the autumn of 1998. I was working on several series of drawings depicting girls in early stages of sexual comprehension. I was using a very fine line and Jack thought that my drawings would translate well as etchings. He sent the doilies to a paper conservator to be tested for acidity and ordered oval copper plates.
Victorian doilies insinuate feminine fragility and coquettish elegance.
Paper versions are cheap and smack of saccharine consumerism, a folderol support for pastries, candy, and school-paste craft. Mass production has made disposable decadence readily available to anyone who can afford it. The doilies and candy box format provided a safe playground for 'sticky' subjects, luring the visual sweet tooth into a more visceral palette. The girls I draw are illusory but they are pulled from a collective memory of bed stains and fingerprints. Regretfully sentimental, they smear the dainty line between girlhood expectations and childhood reality.