Happy Spring 20, Shane!

a phrase that kinda bothers me when talking about women's historical roles in europe is "cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children." you hear it so often, those exact words in the same order even. and once you learn a little more you realize that the massive gaping hole in that list is fiberwork. im not an expert and have no hard numbers, but i wouldnt be surprised if fiberwork took up nearly as much time as the other three tasks combined, so it's not a trivial omission.

it's not a hot take to say that the mass amnesia about fiberwork is linked to the belittlement of women's work in geneal, but i do think there's a special kind of illusion that is cast by "cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children." you hear that and think "well i cook and clean and take care of children (or i know someone who does) and i have a sense of how much work that is" and you know of course that cooking and cleaning were more laborious before modern technology, but still, you have a ballpark estimate you think, when in fact you are drastically underestimating the work load.

i also think that this just micharacterizes the role of women's work in livelihoods? cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children are all sisyphean tasks that have to be repeated the next day. these are important, but not the whole picture. when we include all kinds of fiberwork—and other things, such as making candles or soap—women's work looks much more like manufacturing, a sphere we now associate more with men's work. i feel like women's connection to making and craftsmanship is often elided.

‘Our clothes take care of us. They are our protective shell, our second skin, our closest embrace. They encircle us gently and keep us dry, warm, and cozy. Because of this job well done, even the cheapest of clothes are deserving of our care and attention when they break.

There's nothing broken that can't be fixed. That old saying comes to mind again. What if we could really believe it and apply it to everything in our lives? Just as we choose not to give up on an old busted pair of jeans, we choose to heal a friendship, we choose to let go of an old grudge we've been carrying around, and we choose to acknowledge feelings that have been hurt. The most vulnerable members of our society - the houseless, mentally ill, incarcerated - are cast out and disposed of. Can we learn to say, "I won't give up on you" and truly practice it?

When we mend, we are participating in the healing of the world, as mending is a profound act of restoring integrity to an object and our relationship to it. "We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted waters and degraded lands, but also for our own relationship to the world," indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer said. "We need to restore honor to the way we live, so that when we walk through the world we don't have to avert our eyes with shame, so that we can hold our heads up high and receive the respectful acknowledgement of the rest of the earth's beings."’

- Final Thoughts from Mending Life: A Handbook for Repairing Clothes and Hearts by Nina and Sonya Montenegro

Pics are mine

oh..............thats comfort. thats comfort of my gore character.

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𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥 𝔬𝔣 𝔪𝔞𝔭𝔩𝔢𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢 ♰ suuuper rough color study from reference! this is the background for the previous image

Patricia A. Bender, Geometry 300, (oxidized gelatin silver cliche-verre print with colored pencil), 2020, Unique [Laurence Miller Gallery, New York, NY. © Patricia A. Bender]

a sad day for america

They don’t tell you this but in the United States there is an extremely low chance to encounter a vehicle shaped like a hotdog

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