Laundry Works

In 1977, Mother Art created a series of performances in laundromats in various parts of Los Angeles. This project was supported by a $700 grant from the California Arts Council. The idea was to make the private public. 

Each of us brought our individual artwork to the Laundry Works performances. These addressed the theme of cleansing.

Pieces ranged from documentary to poetic, ironic to whimsical. We hung clotheslines to transform the laundromat. Each performance lasted one wash and dry cycle. 

“Articulate, timely and provocative, Mother Art considered the effects
of its work, especially Laundry Works, on a deep social and psychic level:‘It crossed class lines; there was something absolutely wonderfully material about dealing with the sheer transformation of dirty clothes-wet, dry and the cycle, the literal revolution -and the metaphors are ripe for connections with social revolution, perhaps even something unimagined, perhaps utopian.’ “

Interview with Mother Art by Andrea Liss,PhD, Los Angeles, CA, November 5, 2005,
Feminist Art and the Maternal, 2009, University of  Minnesota Press