the project

  "One day Tom hung over the fence and said, "I'm going to be a pilot when I grow up." "I'm going to be a cook, cleaner, nurse, teacher and an artist," said Jane. "You can't be so many things," said Tom. "Oh yes I can," said Jane. "A good homemaker is all of those things."1 
   Using a simple, literal, reductivist approach to interpreting women's experience, I am making four pies per week for fifty-two weeks. During this period, I will be posting regular journal accounts of my pie making labour on this website. The process is essentially a performance work utilizing text entries, as well as digital, audio and video documentation.  Another substantial component of this project is an oversized (3 metres long) lard box which I am constructing, combining rug hooking and digital imagery.
   My current work, employing the home baked pie as an icon of domestic accomplishment and representative of traditional family values, raises issues of domestic labour, value, temporality and memory.  In perfectpie.net I will continue to explore these themes while pursuing the "perfect pie". 
   perfectpie.net investigates women's labour, domestic identity and external expectations through the processes of pie making, rug hooking, and web journaling.

1 Greene, Carla.  I want to be a HOMEMAKER.  Chicago:  Children's Press:  1961.