Domestic Goddesses
by Edith Vonnegut
Category: Art

In this immensely charming and insightful book, artist Edith Vonnegut takes issue with traditional art imagery in which women are shown as weak and helpless. Through twenty-seven of her own paintings interspersed with her text, she poignantly -- and humorously -- illustrates her maxim that the lives of mothers and homemakers are filled with endless challenges and vital decisions that should be portrayed with the dignity they deserve. In Vonnegut's paintings, one woman bravely blocks the sun from harming a child (Sun Block) while another vacuums the stairs with angelic figures singing her praises (Electrolux). In contrasting her own Domestic Goddesses with the diaphanous women of classical art (seven paintings by masters such as Titian and Botticelli are included), she 'expresses the importance of traditional roles of women so cleverly and with such joy that her message and images will be forever emblazoned on our collective psyche.