5/2/14

The DANCE OF THE LAUNDRY


It's Saturday, laundry day. Sometimes Sunday is laundry day if Saturday looks as if there won't be enough sun or breeze to dry things on the line.

I love hanging laundry on the line. People these days think that's odd. Whole communities prevent people from hanging out their laundry. Children have grown up never knowing the fun of running amongst sheets hanging on the line. They are used to hearing the dryer running and not the sounds of a spring morning as you do a repetitive task without thinking.

I believe those of us who love the flapping of a white sheet in the sun can easily see the movement as dance. So, in honor of the Sepia Saturday prompt this week, I give you Laundry Dancing.


Click on image to see it larger.


Click on image to see it larger.

20 comments:

  1. Well, I always say there’s an art to haning out the laundry and in these pictures it’s taken to extreme. Great.

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  2. Not so sure I love frozen sheets! Great photos!

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  3. Anonymous5/03/2014

    Well aren't those three ladies having fun, and I wonder in the second photo if the pole ever slipped and the washing ended up on the ground.

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  4. How well I remember helping Mom hang clothes out on the line - & taking them in. We had a double line around a pulley. And oh, did those sheets smell good, dried out in the air. But I do have to say I prefer towels dried in a dryer. My grandmother told us tales about drying clothes on the line in Salt Lake City in the winter. If she waited too long during a cold winter day to bring things in, she had to be very careful because if she dropped something - such as a frozen pillowcase or tablecloth - it would break into pieces. Living in California, it was hard to understand that.

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  5. See ! It's all how you look at things isn't it? The Laundry Dance. I never knew. I shall practice it more often.

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  6. What a great idea.! I do remember fondly, running through the sheets and the wonderful smell of air dried laundry. It wasn't much fun in the winter when we hung the sheets in the basement...everything smelled a little moldy. I remember my parents having only one fight and the next day my mother received, as a good will offering from my father, a washer and dryer. I think of that day every time I do my own laundry.

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  7. I miss the days of running through the laundry my mom hung on the line.

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  8. What fun photographs. I wonder what those ladies in the first photo are going. Doing the laundry and hanging clothes were such mundane tasks years ago that there are few photographs of laundry on the line. I still hang clothes out to dry when it's warm enough.

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  9. Is "Joy" a category? It should be.

    We still have bedsheets that are now almost 60 years old (American made of course) that when dried in the sun have a scent that can take my memory back in time 60 years in an instant. .

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  10. Isn't it funny. I will put off and put off hanging up the laundry, but when I do eventually take it out to the washing line, I too really enjoy the process. It forces me to step away from the computer for a few minutes and enjoy the sunshine, the birds singing and flitting around, the cars going past on the road, the cows mooing, etc. etc. without feeling guilty.

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  11. I thought the one lady had a strait jacket on...

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  12. I remember a cloths line in my childhood and it also had a pole to raise the line. It did keep the laundry from dragging.

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  13. Too Much Starch!

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  14. Too funny! I totally remember these days when my mother put everything out to dry, even when she could have had a clothes dryer, she favored the fresh air dry and of course that meant lots and lots of ironing. Silly, silly mommy!

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  15. I have never hung my laundry outside, and I never use white sheets. I don't like doing laundry, and it is much easier putting things in a dryer.

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  16. oh I still hang laundry out too. Sometimes my husband says I'm nuts for doing so, use the dryer. But to me the fresh smell and the crispness of sheets from the line cannot be beat. I love the clothesline. But the towels go into the dryer for fluffiness.

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  17. Clever idea!!!
    I've only known a clothe dryer,
    so...
    the notion is lost on me,
    but I've much enjoyed the concept.

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  18. When I first saw the top photo, it seemed familiar to me, though I couldn't think why. And then it hit me. It reminded me of a series of photos of Dancer Loie Fuller by Samuel Beckett. (Not the writer.) I just finished looking them up, and if you're interested, put one of them on my Fair Use blog. Too, the Lumiere Brothers made a silent, The Serpentine Dance, which has been credited as Fuller, though that's disputed.

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    Replies
    1. I most definitely see it. Perfect comparison. I hope it was their influence.

      For those who wish to see the image:

      http://fairuse-wjy.blogspot.com/2014/05/loie-fuller-dancing.html

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