Spoon Crown, and Motherhood and Art as Work

The artist, wearing her Spoon Crown, copyright Elaine Luther 2015

Yeah, so I made Spoon Crown. This is me in my kitchen, wearing my work shirt and crown.

The patches say, “Artist” and “Mother,” because both are real work that society doesn’t value, doesn’t see, doesn’t reward.

Both are jobs that are supposed to be done for love, anyone who does art or mothering work and seeks money is told that they’ve sold out or that it’s not possible.

I’m both. I’m both an artist and a mother. Both are real work.

I’ve worn this shirt exactly twice, once for this picture and once at a conference while giving the speech, “My Life in the Visual Arts.”

Things I learned about work shirts:

• they wash and dry so quickly and wrinkle free!

• there’s a class element to wearing this kind of shirt that I hadn’t been aware of until I wore it out in public.

I put the shirt and patches together with the idea of wearing it as I went grocery shopping, being all confrontational, sort of educating people as I went about my normal life. Or it being a living art piece. Turns out I’m not that kind of artist.