"Cushion" by Wendy Edwards: Object of the Month

Cushions provide comfort for weary bodies. To cushion is to soften some type of pain or negative effect. Wendy Edwards has used pastel throughout her artistic career to create work that straddles the line between abstraction and figuration. Cushion demonstrates this tendency, as the composition shifts between an undulating abstract form and the representation of two bodies pressed up against each other. In this work, the two bodies begin to meld together, to become something else, inviting conversation about what it means to cushion another.

Pastels have been a staple in artist studios since the Renaissance. Made from finely ground pigment, a filler of chalk or clay, and a binder, pastels are a versatile drawing medium that produce velvety surfaces, intense color, and lines of differing thickness. The immediacy of a line drawn in pastel appeals to many artists, as does the potential to smudge the pigment with one’s finger or a stump to blend colors and produce varying textures.

While artists first employed pastels to prepare studies for artworks in other mediums, in the eighteenth century they began to use the medium to create finished compositions. Later utilized in combination with other mediums, including charcoal, chalk, and watercolor, pastels freed many to move away from academic conventions.

Born in Virginia, Wendy Edwards served for forty years as a professor of visual art at Brown University until her retirement in 2020. Last year she donated three pastel drawings to the Museum’s collection, including Cushion (1984). This and drawings by twenty-nine other artists will be featured in Powdered Pigments: Three Centuries of Pastel Drawings, a new installation that opens at the Museum on April 7th. Lily Weafer ’23, an intern at the Museum during the summer of 2021, and Frank Goodyear, co-director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, curated the exhibition.

Please join us on April 8th at noon for an introductory tour. Also, mark your calendars for May 4th, when Edwards will be at the Museum to discuss Cushion and other drawings in the installation.

Frank Goodyear
Co-Director, Bowdoin College Museum of Art