Week 35: Sep. 1, 2024

Shoulder Bag, Seminole, Florida, ca. 1830, Wool cloth, glass beads, silk ribbon and wool yarn

Bags…

I’ve been surprised by the fact that what I continually notice as I walk through the art - pieces created over thousands of years, and across different cultures and continents - is how much stays the same. I assumed I would be more surprised by how much everything changes. But no.

The first thing I thought of when I saw this was the hand bag featured in the photo I posted on May 12 from a stone carving made in 800 BC. It could have been a hand bag from 800 AD, or 1800 AD, or today. I believe that bag was meant to carry seeds, and here this bag could easily carry seeds, or books, or an ipad. Apparently, human kind across all time and space, has a need to carry things and bags don’t need to change that much to keep up.