Anna & Hillary

Anna works full-time in the home, homeschooling their 7-year-old while also caring for their toddler. Hillary worked in digital services for the US government through the Obama administration, and has recently been named the first-ever Chief Digital Officer for the province of Ontario, Canada.

Though they are two women sharing one massive workload, their partnership tends toward traditional roles of money-maker and home-caregiver. Two intensely intelligent people with wicked senses of humor, they have weathered the challenges of cross-country commuting while parenting two young children. They seem to “do it all,” but if you ask them how they make it happen, they shrug and say, “we do what we have to do.”

In this sculpture, the two women’s work hours are intertwined, as they are in real life—Hillary in gray and Anna in green. Paid labor (Hillary only) is represented by the metal pods, outward-facing and structured. Unpaid labor (both women), mostly caretaking and domestic responsibilities, is represented by wool felt pods, inward-facing and softer. The hours are carefully measured out on the rope hanging down, but eventually the structure falls apart and the hours tumble around. The few hours when they were not working are indicated by spaces on the rope.