GDP Excluded Aprons
The suite of ten drawings in this series reveals the disappointment and unhappiness experienced by women who raise their children at home, while also doing the necessary housework. Many women give up paid employment and careers to do this. Despite their many years of exhausting and essential labour in their homes, they are marginalized, unnoticed and unpaid.
Read More of Artist's Statement
Most of these drawings were made in 1985-6 when I was obliged to leave my printmaking press and equipment behind in Kingston, Ontario, and move to Cambridge Massachusetts for eight months. I left before completing my series of large apron monoprints, for which my workspace and supplies were necessary.
Before leaving Kingston I made an apron from white cotton, which served as my subject for most of this series of apron drawings. The hanging Apron Drawings in this series are based on my earlier photographs of aprons hanging on a clothesline and in a tree.
In some of my drawings I have attached hands to the apron ties, so that the apron becomes the housewife and mother, whose dismay and resentment are expressed in the positions of the hands and ties.
THE VALUE Of HOUSEWORK AND CHILD RAISING WORK AT HOME IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE TOTAL VALUE OF GOODS AND SERVICES PRODUCED IN ANY COUNTRY.
EXCLUDING HOUSEWORK AND CHILD RAISING WORK IN THE HOME, FROM THE GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT IS IN FACT, ASSIGNING NO ECONOMIC VALUE TO UNTOLD YEARS OF ESSENTIAL CHILD RAISING LABOUR AND HOUSEWORK.
THIS EXCLUSION ALSO INVALIDATES THE GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT.
