Artist Statement: There is a tradition of American housework which gave specific tasks to each day of the week (washing on Monday, ironing on Tuesday, etc.) lending a certain order and stability to a homemaker’s work. Furthermore, there is the appearance of luxurious time in that schedule: time to embroider linens (even lowly dishtowels and aprons), time to be home with children and to work in the garden. In contrast, today’s homemaker must fit laundry in with an outside job, cooking, errands, housework, child care. Such juggling of tasks leads to a feeling of chaos and fragmentation. Time with one’s children or friends or in one’s garden is at a premium.

On the other hand, in a pre-electrical age, that laundry would likely have taken all day, and the lack of goods to buy or money with which to buy them would have forced homemakers to mend dishtowels to within an inch of their lives and make their own aprons.

While I have no desire to go back to those days, I do wonder that all our labor-saving devices have led to a frenetic pace of life.

Dimensions: 69" wide x 85" high

Materials and Techniques: Contructed of aprons on dishtowel. Cross stitching added.