Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses drawing as a tool to research and reflect upon the lives of material artefacts using case studies of an artist working with historic dress collections. It demonstrates how the visual scrutiny of drawing can elicit material evidence and offer nuanced interpretation.

Paper long abstract:

The paper discusses drawing as a tool to research, communicate and reflect upon the material evidence in historical artefacts. It asks: If drawing is an "archaeology of acts of touching" (Godfrey 1992) that embodies the maker's subjective experience (Rosand 1992; Crowther 2017) and mirrors other forms of human touch, what potential might this offer object-based research in archival collections?

This question is explored through three case studies of an artist (myself) using drawing to research historic dress collections at Kensington Palace (2009-2013), The Bowes Museum (2013-2015) and Ryerson Fashion Research Collection, Toronto (2017- present). These projects highlight how the visual scrutiny of drawing can elicit material evidence and offer nuanced, muliti-layered interpretation. The drawings presented will demonstrate how graphic choices of material, tool, substrate and mark making system can embody the material sense of artefacts and reflect the ways they are handled, examined and preserved. This emphasises drawing's capacity to record and communicate the materiality and emotional impact of seeing the garments, and the value of drawing as a tool for synthesising other sensory information alongside the visual.

The case studies enable us to revisit interpretations of drawing as "archaeology" or a means for "burrowing beneath the surface" (Berger 1992) to outline a fresh approach to how we might think about getting beneath the surface of an historical artefact, literally and metaphorically, through drawing.