Mediating the materiality of the duster - Marks Make Meaning: Women and Domesticity – What’s your perspective?

My contribution was an embroidered yellow duster, exploring the notion of drawing with thread as a meditative process, within the context of health and wellbeing

Over the course of one month, I engaged daily with a yellow dusting cloth, embellishing it with intuitive marks that respond to the materiality of the cloth and its significance as a mundane domestic object. The result is an expression of the experience as well as a personal voice. The marks made with a needle and thread reference those created through drawing, leaving a trace if unpicked and permanence through application and style.
The repetitive process of sewing in this way also mimics patterns of behaviour experienced when completing domestic tasks – motions such as wiping that repeat without conscious thought.

This investigation sits within my research project, ‘Women and Domesticity – What’s your Perspective?’ which explores the relationship between women and domesticity through an open call for perspectives to be embroidered upon a duster.