Claudia May Howard
Bachelor of Fine Arts
'Invisible Labor Series'
I am concerned with aesthetic conditions and experiences of domesticity and the role of women concerning fabric and lace production, themes of inhabitation, memory and place. I create deconstructed lace wallpapers and pin motifs that underline issues concerning domesticity, the historical role of women in society, and an interest in the idea of ‘invisible labour’ to appropriate and subvert this domestic, traditional craft. My deconstructed lace motifs politicise domestic roles and become a vessel for rebellious story telling, a form of reeducation from within the means of craft making . Historically, lace was recognised as a symbol of status. Crafted by women at the lower end of the economic hierarchy, mass manufacture and industrialization eventually destroyed the cottage industry. Presently lace manufacturing skills have become insignificant, and the perception and value has shifted to that of chintzy, kitsch and substandard. Craft, domesticity and identity, including gender issues and aspects of post-feminism are concepts and interlinked territories addressed through the use of, and reference to, textiles in my practice. In response, I comment on the history of lace and the anonymous women who fabricated it. I explore lace as an object and status symbol, and its manufacture and association with women's social history. By appropriating processes, techniques and materials used to make lace, I interpret the way in which mass-produced decorating has become the norm as creativity and specialisation are no longer directly associated. A deterioration and disappearance has distressed this crafts traditions and appreciation has diminished. By deconstructing hand made lace motifs, skillfully unpicking and distressing particular details, my work looks beyond surfaces of objects, uncovering neglected, invisible histories of places and people, as a way of reframing and reconsidering the past. Investigating lace works by artist Catherine Bertola, examining Harmony Hammond’s definition of feminist art and extracting theories from novel ‘The yellow Wallpaper’(1899), I portray shifts in women’s roles domestically1. Communicating there is no solitary definition for feminist art, by drawing on these roles, in households, in craft production/ labour, my work uses ‘overlooked’ materials in contemporary formats. A preoccupation with ways passing time can alter valuable things is prominent within these ‘deconstructed’ representations of social change. Quintessentially feminine, domestic and sexualised, associated with anonymous female labour, my textile lace decorations play on contemporary manipulations of fabric, telling stories of transformation, also highlighting dislocations between manufacturing and what is now considered aesthetically beautiful. Interventions into the domestic arena are notably highly critical, examining the pleasure of the decorative on one hand while simultaneously critiquing the exchange of labour. This decadence is exposed through attention to detail through both media and form.