The Washing Gets Me Down

Digital collage on fabric, 30 x 20 cm, Private Collection

The washing gets me down and wrecks me for anything all week and comes again before I have recovered. 

Ada Lightfoot really struggled with the family’s laundry. She was in poor health and arduous tasks made her asthma worse. In one of her letters she writes about her experience to daughter Frances. She describes how she washes on a Tuesday, and because the weather is so bad, the washing is then hung all around the house. It takes until Friday to be dry enough to iron. The soap she uses to clean her husband and eldest son’s dirty overalls is so harsh it makes her fingers bleed.

In this digital collage, I’ve given voice to Ada’s poignant words in creating the fabric of the overall that one of the women is wearing. 

Ada’s Letter Digital print on canvas