These drawings are based on a recent video, The Institute, which was included in Simspon's Whitney retrospective earlier this year.  The drawings, like the video, are drawn from rough cut footage from a promotional film made by an institution for children with speech and learning disabilities in Wichita, Kansas in the late 1950's.  They depict four actresses in the role of mother or caregiver whose slight variations in gesture, posture and expression are beautifully rendered in pencil, ink and watercolor.  In the drawings, Lorna removes the actresses from the stark setting of the film and from the child that sits awkwardly on their laps, focusing instead on their faces and accessories. Interspersed with the portraits of the actresses are images of a young woman named Barbara who, we learn from the film, is a student at the institution. Barbara is handled in the same manner as the actresses though where they recede into the empty back ground, she seems to project more animatedly into the viewer’s frame. Together, these portraits become studies on the construction of identity achieved through the subtle interplay of lines and accents of color.