Artist: Valerie Boyes
Title: A family Cabinet of Curiosities
Medium: oil on board
Size: 6 x 8 in.
Artist Statement:
Every object in this painting comes from our own family collection of strange and treasured things: my great-grandmother’s Eastern Star pin, a taxidermied lizard that belonged to my husband’s great-uncle from the 1930’s, pins and an earring from his grandmother and great aunt, my great-grandfather’s little red notebook from 1906, and my husband’s uncle’s 1906 copy of The World’s Famous Orations.
I love that these odd little objects have survived for generations, passed from one person to another. On their own they may not seem particularly important, but together they hold pieces of our family history, and have become our own little cabinet of curiosities.