To express my predicament, I took photographs of kitchen items, that I used constantly, my measuring cup, my shortening carton, my shopping bags, my egg carton, my cake rack, even my fork and spoon. I rephotographed these items with a photograph of my face. When the photo of my face dropped into my measuring cup, I realized that I had found an image that clearly expressed the reality of my domestic identity and my resulting limitations.

For the most part, the prints that followed from this process were either monoprints or small editions. They combined the use of heat photo transfer technology with relief printing and off-set printing. I photographed the selected images and printed them on photo transfer paper, using a home printer with my computer. I then used heat from my household Iron to transfer the images to BFK Rives paper which has one hundred percent rag content. I relief printed large areas of dark background colour, using printing surfaces made on thin dense card.

Like many women, I did not plan to spend my life in the kitchen. And yet I wanted to have children. I was not prepared to give up their care and training to less qualified workers. I hoped that I could do both as a part time artist.

At this stage, I had not heard of Betty Friedan. I was not aware of Dolores Hayden's Book about the experiments in communal architecture and housing in the United States for families in similar situations. I was not aware of second stage Feminism. I had little time to read until after my daughters finished high school. It was then that my awareness of my situation sank in. I read a long list of feminist writers including those who identified the maleness of mainstream art. Grizelda Pollock 's “Vision and Difference”, about Femininity, Feminism and the Histories of Art was a revelation. On her visit to Kingston, Grizelda Pollock purchased my print of the Angry Red Apron in the Exploited Apron Series.

View » The View From My Room IS Great