Laundry Drawings

I recently started drawing in my huge Moleskine watercolor sketchbook. I decided the first page would be an ode to Laundry here in the DR. Laundry lines are to me about the closest things to art galleries as you will ever find here. On any sunny day here in the Dominican Republic you're bound to find the streets lined with an endless gallery display of laundry hanging out to dry. They hang it on regular laundry lines, on barbed wire, over shrubs and bushes, hanging in trees, and even on the roof of the house. A love for color is immediately apparent to anyone who comes here, so it's no surprise that this love is also expressed in the clothing they wear. They're bright bold colors and patterns, often grouped unknowingly into interesting color schemes which never fail to make me wish I were drawing.

I suppose Dominicans are accustomed to seeing wash hanging out on the line like this, but to me it's something I haven't seen much since I was a child. Dryers have pretty much put an end to the "hanging laundry" era of the past. Of course, when it comes time for me to do my laundry I love a good dryer. And if you ask my wife she'll tell you that they're nothing short of miraculous. But even so, at least visually speaking, there is something I miss about seeing laundry hanging out to dry. It has a certain warmth to it, a trust. In the US i guess we're so preoccupied with privacy that the last thing we're going to do is put our undies on display for all to see. But before I go on extolling the virtues of hanging one's laundry out to dry, let me just say that Heydi did the wash on friday night. It's now Sunday and we still don't have dry clothes. RAIN! Hmmm, where's my dryer at.

To see more of my laundry drawings, go here... My Flickr laundry drawings