Sunday, March 15, 2009

Chinese Laundry



This image (from Time) struck me as ripe for translation into an abstract color field painting, or a complex drawing in a picture book or graphic novel. It shows laundry hanging outside a student dormitory at a college in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. I am trying to imagine such a scene here in Bloomington, where we also have large, high-rise student dorms.

This reminds me of how much I have always liked the look of laundry hanging on a line: from the sheets my grandmothers used to put up in their backyards (which we would use as tents and cloth alleys for games); to the clothes out the back of brick row houses in Dublin, where I lived in the Coombe one year; to folding drying racks set up in Germany or Holland, in the garden. Spring is coming: time to think about initiating a system to hang clothes out to air!


2 comments:

DG said...

Beautiful Elenabella: thank you for rising at 3 am to post the blog that was my church this morning. I haven't had a chance to visit for awhile because, as you mention, the arts are reeling from the recession. Even at the "great" institutions on the national mall we are working 10 or more hours a day and 7-8 days a week--dancing as fast as we can--to find ways to continue with research and exhibition work. Check out artist Fiona Tan--whose new exhibition we are trying to bring to the Sackler next year. When arts funding is down it's so often the new and marginal, the unpredictable and complex art that we allow to fall by the wayside. We need those perspectives now more than ever. Happy Birthday Jack, indeed. Dylan is with us! Love to all! Deb

elena said...

Dear Deb,
Thanks for your post, making the 3am "uprising" all worthwhile. Please keep us posted on the state of the arts from your view at(and under)the Washington Mall. And I will take a look at Fiona Tan. xe