FOOD or WOMEN’s WORK, 2019-ongoing, 16”x20”, mixed media and digital collage

The Cult of Domesticity is a term used by historians to describe the prevailing value system among upper- and middle-class white protestants in America and the United Kingdom during the nineteenth century. This ideology identified that “true women” should be restricted to the home and possess four cardinal virtues: piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness. Today, I still feel the lasting effects ideology has had on the role of women in the public sphere.

My Granny Caldwell is a card-carrying member of The Cult of Domesticity and often mourns my failed womanhood. I made this series of collagesat home with my grandmother over Christmas, while most women were tending to the emotional and physical labor of creating a loving refuge for their husband and children. FOOD or WOMEN’s WORK, is a series of hysteria induced mixed media collages created from imagery culled from 1950’s cookbooks and male cut-outs from my elementary school yearbooks.