Work No.2 cleaning/praying lady made from dust
Laundry Box: bought 2006. On its lid stamped in yellow:
SCOTTISH
Launderers-Cleaners
Herne Bay ‘Phone, 3743/4
11.73
I forgot about the box until I learnt that in 1913 Marcel Duchamp visited his sister in Herne Bay. From the dust that had settled and lint collected from my laundry I decide to fashion a jacket. The lace-like quality of the dust and lint, lent itself to being fashioned into a tailcoat.
According to Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly in his essay on Brummell and dandyism, dandies took to rubbing their clothes with broken glass, until they took on the appearance of lace, became “a mist of cloth,” scarcely existing as clothes.
Sewing Pattern (mobile): inspired by the Malic Moulds in Duchamp’s The large Glass which he was working on in Herne Bay.
The laundry box represents a cycle of life from pre-existence (pattern) towards non-existence (jacket).
