“Sheet Closet” by Judy Chicago Essay

All works of art bear a certain message of their creator, his or her feelings and emotions that touch strings of the viewers’ hearts. The major aim of art is the ability to communicate some ideas, values, and concepts through generations, time, and space; every work of art becomes a part of the world’s cultural heritage able to accumulate everything humankind appreciates, fears, and worships, etc. At times works of art are heavily influenced by the moods dominating the epoch in which they are created; for this reason, art carries not only spiritual but at times historical value as well. The work that is the subject of today’s discussion is one of the works that combines the cultural, aesthetic, and historical-artistic value because of its creation in the period of the rise of feminism in the USA in the middle of the 20th century. The work is a piece of a sculpture titled “Sheet Closet” produced by Judy Chicago as a part of her site installation “Womanhouse” (Feminism in Art).

As you can see, this piece of art shows a woman stuck in between the shelves of her sheet closet – the whole sculpture is done in pale yellow-whitish color, deprived of vividness and liveliness. The door of the sheet closet is open, and the woman is stuck in the center thereof. Sheets are lying on both sides of the woman in piles, and the woman seems to be split into parts by the shelves, with her head apart, with her hands locked, and with one leg stepping outside the closet and another one being firmly blocked by the lower shelves that are closed (Feminism in Art).

“The Sheet Closet”, or as it is often called, “The Linen Closet”, is a typical work of art expressing feminist motives that gained force in the 1970s. The woman literally embedded between the shelves of her sheet closet, being unable to move or to leave it, symbolizes the cage that the household chores represented for a woman in the second half of the 20th century. Judy Chicago tries to show how ugly the cage is, and how miserable the woman in that cage feels because of no way out – she is not understood, and she has nothing else to do but to take care of her family and literally about the house that captivates her.

Feminism as a social movement appeared only at the beginning of the 20th century and did not gain force and recognition until the 1950s-1970s. Women were living their miserable, deprived lives, they were stuck at home with cooking, ironing, and washing up, and their major fun was to meet with similar women to share some recipes or secrets of the household. Working mothers usually were single, and there is a great body of literature and art describing their awfully, inhumanely hard fate. However, it does not prove that women in full families were happy and their life was much easier than that of single mothers. Their labor was not seen and not appreciated because the whole family usually took it for granted. Thus, women simply had no private life apart from the family, and their value as personalities was measured by the borders of their house and garden. This is what is shown by the “Sheet Closet” – the woman who is the subject is silent, she does not make any attempts to get free, but her face expresses torture that she feels during many days, months, and years, so her silence and passiveness becomes even more eloquent, shocking and unbearable. There are many standpoints that a viewer can take about the sculpture, and some of them are really worth discussing.

It seems that the installation is very expressive from the point of view of feminism, and it visually shows the way every woman felt about half a century ago. Her silence and her captivation are so tormenting for her, which is seen from her facial expression, but at the same time, the installation represents such a peaceful view, with the mild color and the sheets lying in the closet that the picture produces a frightfully peaceful impression, like a normal part of the house in which a family lives. Together with the understanding of the natural occurrence of such a view in a house, the understanding of how hard it is for a woman comes. This paradox is the common one that brought about the rise of feminism, I guess. Women were suffering because of their helplessness, because they were doomed to household chores in case they were ‘normal, and had nothing more but the kitchen with all appliances, and the closet with sheets that had to be washed, dried, ironed, and piled in the closet for other family members only to come and take them to dry their hands or faces.

It shows a woman stuck in the closet in which all sheets are clean, dry, and lying in a regular, practically ideal order. These closets are so sharply juxtaposed to the image of a suffering woman that the viewer obtains an impression that the amount of tortures is directly proportional to the order and cleanness in the house. The towels are lying clean and orderly, but the sight of the woman shows how much work had to be done to create this clean and tidy pile of sheets. The viewer might suggest how many hours were spent by the woman on washing them, then drying them in the yard, then ironing them for several hours, and then folding them the way they would lie in the closet. Finally, the pile of sheets would be put in the closet – who knows, maybe the woman has to spend the whole day to complete this household chore, while her kids and husband will come in the evening from work and school and will use those sheets for a minute, without even thinking of how much work was done for them to be able to use clean sheets? These are all thoughts that appear in my mind when I see “The Sheet Closet”.

There are many works of art and literature telling about the misery of working single women who had to provide for their living and for their children. Their labor was considered hard indeed, but women who were living a seemingly good, stable, and happy life, were not happy in fact but only survived. Their thoughts, feelings, and opinions were not significant, and their main function was to maintain the house in order, to feed family members, and to keep the household clean and order. This in fact was similar to slavery, and which was even worse in their position was the fact that nobody suspected their sufferings and considered them happy and content women. This was my main message – even a clean house, a fridge full of tasty food, and a tidy house, the happy and content family does not make a woman happy, and even in these favorable surroundings, a woman may suffer strongly and deeply.

References

‘Feminism in Art’. Feminism in the Sixties. University of Bristol. 2003.