Musings about Laundry Day

No doubt I was doing a lot of laundry at this time and seeking a way to find more meaning in it. This image is another visual meditation on the beauty of fabrics— the materials in which we clothe ourselves and the world— that seeks to uncover a mythic meaning that lies beyond the practical task. This laundress partakes in an ephemeral art form of decorating the beach with fabric—of washing and then laying out the clothes on rocks to dry in the sun. And then at the day’s end, folding them and taking them back inside for her family’s use. This reminded me of Andrew Goldworthy’s artwork (Collaboration with Nature) where he gathers natural items—leaves, sticks, stones—and arranges them in an ephemeral composition that will be destroyed by the forces of rain, time, sun, wind and gravity. The purpose of his work is not to remain forever fixed, but to explore a possibility in creating a pattern that will last for just a moment in time. And this idea of arranging forms with no thought of lasting permanence, I sought to bring into my own daily chores through this painting, Laundry Day.