We went to an exhibition of Louise Bourgeois' remarkable late works, made in her 90s – fabric sculptures, paperworks and a room-spanning metal spider crouching over a cage.
I stopped at a piece titled Femme Maison (2001), on a theme of a series begun in the 1940s. Covered with a fuzzy flesh coloured material the sculpture suggests both a woman's body trapped and disfigured (or incapacitated) by the little house sitting (or growing) in the middle of her. Or more positively you could read the figure as the ground of the growth: mother earth.
It made me think for the first time in ages of a book I designed in 2002: Wifework. A polemical thesis by Susan Maushart, then a popular columnist on the Australian, it had a title that was the business – a smart punning on housework; (house)wifework. From the blurb: "Almost half of all marriages end in divorce. Three-quarters of these divorces are initiated by women. Why? – Wifework."
The first edition cover was an exercise in avoiding controversy, a swathe of hot pink cloth with type; I had to toss out what I thought were pointed and witty visuals; but of course that was the very problem with them.
In the next iteration the publishing group allowed me my way. I had had this sudden vision of an iron which was also a stiletto shoe, charring floorboards – hot press, hot shoe, hot foot, iron shoe, a burning weight – it riffed on a spray of puns. The stiletto and the pointy iron sole made for a cruel image. I wasn't much familiar with Bourgeois' work then; my debt, stylistic rather then conceptual, was owed to John Brack (even though, on reflection, it's not much like his look at all apart from the intent of precision).
I'll drop in a proper jpeg when I can locate the original book to scan (so long ago all this!); and I'll look for the original art, a small painting in gouache; I can still remember how painstaking it was – wifework, artwork.
I have always loved this cover best, of all the editions. Thank you! Susan Maushart
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