Jay DeFeo, Untitled, from theTripod series, 1976

Dana Miller: In the mid-1970s, DeFeo began making drawings of manmade items in her surroundings. Treating these items, primarily mechanical items as portraits, and bringing out the inner life of these objects.

One of those that she rendered most frequently was her camera tripod, actually two camera tripods, primarily because they were in her studio and in close proximity to her during that time. But also because of their very figurative aspects.

Narrator: She described the tripod she pictured here as the “dressed” tripod. The “dress” was a wet drawing that she’d hung on the tripod to dry. She liked the appearance of the arrangement, and used it as inspiration.

Dana Miller: That's the tripod and its dress, the dressed form or the female figure. The costume, if you will. In this particular work you see that she's created a collage almost mimicking that episode so that there's a drawing of the tripod that's been cut out and then another drawing of the dress that has been collaged and draped on top.