This year I am doing an independent study in Visual Arts called "Crafting Identity." My project focuses on the notions of craft, domesticity, and the women's rights movement through the context of a series of aprons that I am making. I looked at the above images in the research of my project. The first image is an advertisement I found in the 1944 magazine addition of "Home Companion"--a popular women's magazine at the time. The second image is a still shot of June Cleaver from the popular tv series "Leave it to Beaver" in the 1950s. The third image illustrates three young women in the present, and finally the fourth image is also from the present, illustrating a women in a pink checkered apron.

I chose these images because of the presence of the apron in each, and the different ways the apron is portrayed. In the first image the apron is seen as the appropriate uniform for a patriotic war bride waiting home patiently. In the second image, we see the apron on the quintessential domestic housewife June Cleaver. She is in the kitchen, symbolically "tied" to the kitchen by her apron. The three young women in the third image shows the transformation of the apron from a coverup in the kitchen to an elegant addition at a dinner party. Finally, the last image shows the apron as a seductive garment.

The images each depict the apron in a different way; it is fascinating to think about the context behind each image.