New Public Art Installation at the Orland Park Public Library!

I’m so excited and proud to share this with you! This is a first for me, it’s an indoor-outdoor show, a combination public art installation and solo show, all in one.

Let’s look at the outside some more!

And here’s the inside:

The art inside the glass case includes light reactive dye prints on various vintage linens, including handkerchiefs, placemats, napkins, and doilies. These are linens that I printed from 2021 to 2025. The most recent ones I printed the weekend before the installation.

Most of these artworks were made using SolarFast dye on vintage linens. A few of them are cyanotype on paper.

This photo gives you a good sense of how large this space is and how it’s slightly curved. It’s a challenging space to put a show in! Largely because of the glass windows on both sides, and the sheer size of it. For this show, having the vinyl signs on the exterior gave me a solid white backdrop to show the art.

The concept of this show is to have the outdoor part and the indoor part interact and relate to each other – the print on the outside includes various linens that are also displayed on the inside – the exact same artwork!  Plus more.

But wait, there’s more!  We filmed a time lapse video of the sign installation and there’s a drone video!

I’m about to add music to those videos and I’ll come back and add them to this post. I’m going to go ahead and hit publish on this post because I’m so excited to share this show with everyone!

(Update) This image, above, shows a slight change I made to the installation yesterday, September 19th, I swapped out the suspended artwork that was here for these new pieces. Our clever, on the spot idea looked great, but the adhesive didn’t hold long term. The librarian let me know and I made these pieces, drove out and installed them.

These are cyanotypes on paper, mounted on clear acrylic, with another “paper” on the backs. The material on the back is a polyester, kind of like an interfacing, a non-woven material, printed with stripes. I have no idea what its original use was, but it’s lightweight and kind of translucent, so it seemed like a good fit here. After the show is over, I think I’ll put these in a window!

Here’s the view of the circles from the outside:

Let’s pause to appreciate my inclusion of that quote, above from Michelle Hiskey, as it’s a call back to the time Michelle’s own time card, with those very words, was displayed in this same glass display case!

Okay, I just went looking for a photo of her time card and watched the video of that show, Clocking in for Unpaid Labor, and her card wasn’t in that show, I guess she had made it just yet. But still! We’ll count it as a call back! This quote was also in my most recent show, in the form of a time card, in the pocket of an apron, sewn down to a quilt. That’s at least two shows the quote has been in so far!  (She’s given her permission for me to quote her in my art.)

Here’s that quilt:

Here’s the text from those signs:

About this show

How do you get people to appreciate the work you’re doing when they’re benefitting from your labor, yet not noticing that you’re doing it? Women’s work – their physical labor, their emotional labor -often goes unpaid, underpaid, unnoticed and under appreciated.

With this artwork, I invite people to notice by making it beautiful, by drawing people in, to look more closely. I collect vintage, handmade doilies, in order to print them as photograms using light sensitive dye. Though most people think of lace and doilies as out of style and boring, once they’re transformed into blue and white they become captivating.

These are printed on vintage hankies, which themselves have crocheted edges, so the handwork of unknown women shows up again and again in the work, layer upon layer. That the women are unknown, that their work was sold, cheaply, or given away, is another level of commentary in my work.

Viewers take in the range of labor women perform to create a home life for others, raise children, keep connected with family near and far, all while maintaining her own friendships, interests and life. The hope is that by drawing people in with beauty and mystery, they will reflect on the issue of labor in their lives and the lives of those around them.

About the artist

Elaine Luther is an independent studio artist working with textile fragments to shine a light on issues of women’s labor, lives and rights. She transforms handcrafted textiles with light reactive dye to change how people perceive the items.

Her work has shown across the country and in the UK, including at the Garrett Museum of Art, and the libraries and archives at the Bristol Art Museum and the Henry Sheldon Museum.

She has presented speeches at SECAC, Self-Employment in the Arts, FX Chicago, Northern Illinois University, Business of Arts Peoria, and more.

Publications include the book, Give and Take; articles at Sixty Inches from the Center, Chicago Artist Resource, Moore Women Artists, and the Craft Industry Alliance. She is listed in the Chicago Artist Files and in the Reyerson Library Files at AIC. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Kolaj Institute, and the Henry Sheldon Museum and Archives.

Credits

This show is not something I’ve done alone.  Graphic design for the exterior art is by Becka Rahn.  Sign printing and installation by Sign Express of Oak Park, Illinois.  Hosting, permission and support from the Orland Park Public Library.  Interior show installation teamwork by Elaine Luther and artist Marea Cordero.  High resolution scanning of the artwork done by me at Lattitude Chicago, a not for profit digital darkroom.

All photos and videos are by Dulce Rodriguez of XOL Photography, unless otherwise noted.