Week 9, Day 052 BBBBlog it!

Hello Flossie,

In reference to your work Handmade and the comment that the past can conceal a future bias – Is this to be understood as meaning that once one has taken up the domestic identity and ‘adorned the apron’ then one is always connected to that past and decisions will be coloured through the domestic identity? or could you perhaps mean that the apron has figured in both a positive nurturing light in addition to the domestic drudge that some see as a product of womanhood?

I am interested in the inspiration behind the work, so please explain.

Cheers Jill

I like both your interpretations of this assertion! I hadn’t thought of either idea specifically when I wrote what I did but yours make just as good sense to me!

I can only add this additional thought…by putting on the metaphorical ‘apron’ of our cultural heritage (as in doing ‘the correct thing for a particular reason’) we show others what we are made of, that is, our outlook learned from childhood. This is not something we can hide, it is out there being seen by others. But at the same time as we ‘put on’ our behaviour, we cover up part of ourselves. This private side, under the ‘apron’ dictates attitudes and actions we may not realize that we have learned from home. Some people do not look behind their cultural upbringing – for better or worse. In this way the aprons are not gender or domestically based but are used as a metaphor for the workings of society.

Image: Handcrafted aprons

Caption: HANDMADE, 2005, 15 hand crafted, Victorian aprons (Detail)

Women’s work often goes unnoticed but it joins the generations with a specific lettering of culture. Wearing one’s history – like putting on an apron – is easier and harder than may be realized. But the past can conceal a future bias.