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Domestic Bliss???
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| Wednesday May 25th, 2005 02:16 PM |
I haven't felt that inspired lately so I decided to experiment with housewife art, a topic that takes up a lot of my mind and time. I've begun a sort of a pictoral journal/altered book project trying to express some of my feelings about traditional gender roles and my seemingly constant struggle with our home. I feel torn, part of me wants to tuck this pop-up away into my journal and another part of me wants to nail it to the front door.
The front of the card reads, "For Show" and the back of the card reads, "For Real" - I don't know if that's legible in the photo.
This is the first thing I've posted that makes me feel a little exposed so wash me in the gentle cycle.
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| permalink | comments (12) |
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I think you've created a very thoughtful, interesting pice. That's a novel way to look at life, and explore the home reality vs. expectation women often deal with.
I remember all of the extra rules we had in the house when my mom was expecting company - I always felt it was a "show" (or sham ... ) so I really like your choice of words there.
Is it your photo you have covered up and designated as an "impostor"? That makes me sad. Do you feel as if you are an impostor in your "real" life? I feel more often that I am an impostor in my life when it's on the other side.... all new and clean and, well, fake. :)
I wish I could read the small text to get the full effect ...
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That's a really good point delgc - I was definitly thinking of the woman in front as the imposter, that's her label not mine. People who know me would crack up that I even made this card because I'm pretty blunt and straighforward and my house is not super tidy (I'm not the don't sit on the livingroom couch kind of mom). The battle is mostly in my head about expectations (mostly internal) and reality and how to reconcile them.
Phew - I'm a chatty cathy today.
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that is beautiful, honestly. i am not a mom, but the feeling of being an "impostor adult" is one near and dear to my heart. i think that is a wonderful, creative and artistic expression of it.
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I love!!!
We always call it our fake house when we clean up for company and when I play hostess i am the 'other wife' :D It's become a big joke with my husband and I.
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We have the FAKE House TOO! If we didn't have company, we'd never have a tidy house!
Your piece is right on the money...and probably rings true for more women than not!!!!
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oh yeah. i love this journal. i'm actually working on being ok in the messy chaos that is our house. it's always a mess, but we eat really well and enjoy our evening meal and to me, that's where my sense of abundance comes from -- not the perfect house we're supposed to live in. i mean i love my home, have thoughtfully decorated it, and when i do clean it feels really good, but ultimately i'm not going to make myself crazy for some outdated ideal of the "good home." my mother-in-law always and proudly kept her home dirty. and she is super crafty and creative and weaves c arpets, needle-points, thrift shops for all her food and makes her own furniture, etc. she just never felt like cleaning was all that necessary -- and didn't really bother even for guests. this philosophy has definately changed my approach. i still prefer clean and put away, but not if it's going to stop me from doing things i really LOVE to do.
that said, we do tidy for guests. but i always make sure to tell them our house is usually a mess and i've evenhad some friends over with every thing in shams. i guess there is something, for me, about exposing parts of myself that are, in this case literally, messy. but that's what is so great about the new domesticity -- being thoughtful about this stuff but not following any rules that make you feel like an imposter...but also acknowledging that sometimes the whole "impress" thing sneaks up on you. and maybe it's also cool to have a fake house and be a fake wife. i lvoe this notion of playing with identities and keeping it very loose. not having to be one thing all the time.
love this discussion. thanks for posting your fabulous art!
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Hi Selah!
I love yur journal too! My house is in constant turmoil and it was even worse when I was hyperthyroid and feeling completely overwhelmed and tense by anything and everything! I was positively frozen by my inability to concentrate on any one thing for too long. I was really hard on myself. But now I'm better and it's not nearly as bad as I had made it out to be when I was so sick, and I'm able to relax about things much more now. By now, all of our friends and family have become accustomed to seeing our house in disaster mode! LOL!! Ah well....So much for my domesticity! I was an impostor in my home when I was sick. Now I'm getting back to the "normal" me.
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I love the card, and all the thought into it - very well done!
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Love it.
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It's really good to know I'm not alone. I try and remember something Dr. Phil, of all people, said - "people aren't thinking of you near as much as you think". I'm getting over myself. Making stuff and this site is helping!
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The first year of marriage was really hard for me beacause of the very thing that you're describing in this piece. Eventually I figured out that *no one except me* was expecting me to turn into some other kind of person now that I was a "wife." A friend just told me the other day about a woman who says she spent twenty-four years of her life being "a wife and mother" and felt like an imposterer the whole time. She's now getting a divorce so she can change her life. It's heartbreaking that she didn't do the kind of introspection early on that you're able to do now! So bravo for thinking about this now!!
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I really like your pictoral journal/altered book project. As a mom I struggle with the same issues of being and imposter (being the perfect wife and mother ) and maybe this is selfish, but I'm glad to see I'm not alone.
It takes alot of courage to look inside.
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