200 Hours in Retrospect
By: Frau Werner
Tags: Art, Art World, Sex Work, Craft, Textile Art

from my exhibition ‘STAMINA’ in 2017

In 2017, I completed a durational installation made out of 15,541 feet of clothesline installed in an alternative Bushwick project space called Secret Dungeon. I have a background and education in craft, so I was working with the concept of how both women’s work and craft history has occupied a lesser ranking, an invisibility in the art world. A lot of that is changing. 200 hours was the amount of time I spent finger crocheting the piece over the course of six weeks. The show got some good press and was a part of the exhibition Stamina which featured the video work of Australian Thai artist Kawita Vatanajyankur where she contorted and utilized her body to comment on women’s roles in the domestic sphere.

200 hours was an installation finger crocheted entirely of clothesline sourced from the 99 cent stores. I was interested in craft as an endurance based labor practice referencing women’s domestic roles and the physicality inherent to working with fibers. It tasked me with being creative through a meditative, boring, repetitive gesture and working within the parameters of a contained time and space. In interviews and press about the show, I explained how I was aiming to reveal the invisible labor of both domestic labor and of simply existing as a woman in the world.

What I failed to discuss publicly was how much of this installation was related to my parallel experience working in the BDSM dungeon. My experience as a sex worker directly impacted both the concept and execution of this sculpture. Most days as soon as I was done in the gallery, I would rush off to Manhattan to do a session with a client. The labor of my rope craft installation resulted in a sculpture. The labor of my sex work resulted in the resources (time and money) to allow me to perform the labor of my sculpture. I think at one point I may have even invited one of my clients to come see the piece, which was definitely an overstepping of boundaries and resulted in the eventual termination of our relationship, but I occasionally still find myself testing those boundaries to remind myself where they are.

Towards the end of creating the piece, it became so large and weight bearing that it could literally hold the bodies of visitors. People would sway in the hammocks, invited by the warmth of the material and often identifying some part of their own relationship to craft. “My grandmother used to crochet” “Oh, I learned about this in elementary school.” Or “Hey, can I try that?” It felt like a very successful exchange of information and stories.

I felt a secret, albeit at times a bit sad of a validation in knowing that my sex work was literally supporting humans inside the piece. It made me think of motherhood, of what parents are willing to sacrifice for their children. It made me think of all the mothers I had worked with in the dungeon over the years who’s children (and sometimes spouses) did not know what they did. Or even if they did, they could not fully understand it. I was installing in a place called Secret Dungeon and I had spent a third of my life working in a handful of secret dungeons. After the show ended, I closed my art studio and took time to travel and start writing my memoirs.