I’ve been involved with a very interesting project just
recently and I thought I’d like to share it with you and get some wider
perspectives.
Every other week I go to a coffee morning with a group of
mainly Christian women, the group has been going about 8 years but I joined
just a year ago. It is one of my favourite things to do as the women and opinions
in the group are very diverse but all equally supportive. Each time we meet
there tends to be a topic that we will research or discuss and it is good to
have a focus for the session and be challenged. In the year that I’ve been a
part of the group we have discussed so many subjects - vulnerability, many
aspects of parenting, sexualisation of young girls, the place of Food Banks in
the community and in October we had a guest artist who came and discussed
domesticity and the role of women with us.
Vanessa Marr has been working on her Domestic Dusters project for quite some time and it was very interesting to hear from her. She
has created some amazing pieces of embroidery all on old fashioned dusters. She
wanted to take something that was normally very mundane and used for a
practical purpose and simply adorn it to create a narrative and explore the
subjects of domesticity and women’s roles.
Vanessa told us how it was very common place in times gone
by for a group of woman like us to sit together and sew or craft as they spent
time chattering about the minutiae’s of their lives. She talked of these women
being story tellers and this was how fables and fairy stories were captured and
told through the ages. Vanessa made bound some beautiful books full of poems
and stories and also created samplers with intricate patterns to go with those
writings.
At the end of the session she asked us if we wished to
create a duster to capture our concept of domesticity and women’s roles. Most
of us agree we would and since then a few of us have been found to stitch as we
meet together to discuss other topics.
Below is my creation, it is not at all perfect but I quite
like that about it. When I first thought about domesticity all that came to mind
was domestic bliss and how grateful I am for the life changes that I’ve
experienced in the last couple of years. I feel more content and at peace. I
feel like I have time to do the things God wants me to do and to develop and
deepen my relationship with Him.
I love my home and it is part of my ministry to create a
place that is secure and comfortable for my family and those who come to join
us. If you know me from this blog You’ll know I like to speak from the heart
and thus the blog name, so it seemed natural to me to create my duster with the
saying ‘Home is where the heart is’. If I’d had more time and been a more
skilled sewer I would have put the following verse at the bottom of the duster,
as it is what underpins our family.
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Josuha 24:15
I’ve sent my finished duster off to Vanessa, along with a
short paragraph of text to be included in an exhibition she is having at the
end of February in Eastbourne. The exhibition is open to all, so if you think
you might fancy it, go along.
What I want to know is, am I alone in viewing domesticity as
a positive state? Some of my friends who have sewed dusters had a more negative
connotation and the discussions we had the day Vanessa was with us were all about
how the burden falls to women, we try to be superwoman and men need to embrace
it more.
So what does domesticity mean to you?
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