Blog / 2025 / The Fantastic Mx Polka-dot

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Polka-dots are often seen as an informal or even childish pattern, which, when I think about it, is probably why I’ve always loved the design. My aesthetic definitely leans away from formality and towards what I like to call “low-key clown” whenever possible.

When I started this foxy bag for myself, I hadn’t done an overtly polka-dot piece for some time. I mean, I always paint with a lot of dotty details, but I hadn’t done anything where I was repeating big spots in a pattern for a while.

After some friends and I had an exchange about polka-dots and they came down firmly in the anti-spot camp, I started looking into the history of the pattern, and it turns out my friends were pretty much on the pulse at least in the Western story of spots. In medieval Europe, clothing with dots was a sign of unclean living or sickness, reminiscent of measles and smallpox.

Which is why I decided to make one of the titles of this painting Poxy Fox. The original title, before my wanderings in the history of fashion, is Fantastic Mx Polka-dot, a reference to Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox, but Mx instead of Mr because it’s my preferred genderfree title.

Around the same time I started painting the poxy fox bag, I also began sewing dots onto a shirt. I liked the idea of taking time with each spot, getting to know it as I placed it into the larger pattern on my clothing.

Plus I wanted to dye the shirt over and see if I could get a contrast in how the dye took to the pink background and the white dots. I didn’t get the difference I was expecting, except in the yellow at the hem of the shirt, but, having hand-sewn and hand-painted each spot in this look, I still feel like the Fantastic Mx Polka-dot.