Installation of Time, Work and the Task at Riverside Arts Center, Illinois, 2026. Curated by Laura Husar Garcia. Link to her essay HERE.

RECIPE CARD BOX PORTRAITS

Each Recipe Card Box is a tiny repository housing sacred texts. The coded language of recipes reveal the values, aspirations, instructions, energy and rituals that support cultural structures. Since 2019 we have photographed these boxes, so ubiquitous during our childhoods. They represent complex visual metaphors for the gendered pressures of late 20th century America.

Each recipe box is imbued with the unique personaliy of its owner, revealing diverse narratives as well as recording generational knowledge. Handwritten or typed, collected and organized, the recipes are an overlooked and ephemeral archive of domestic expectations from post World War II America. The era was shaped by the rise of the processed food industry, women's shifting roles, marketing and pressures of conformity, among other forces. These profane interventions continue to complicate American’s relationship to domestic life and labor.

11 x 14 inch,  archival pigment prints, 2022-2026, edition of 8.  

TIME, WORK AND THE TASK book

Time, Work and the Task is a book of found poetry excerpted from the Notes section of Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America by food journalist and historian Laura Shapiro. 

In the endnotes to her book, Shapiro introduces the first few words or phrases citing articles, cookbooks, advertising campaigns and culinary trends from her research. To us, this list of truncated fragments reads like the internal dialogues of perpetually interrupted women grappling with domestic life, work and the marketing pressures of the postwar food industry. These are the voices of our mothers and grandmothers — we were shaped by their labor and their stories. In this regressive cultural and political moment, it is inspiring to remember that their turmoil spilled out of the kitchen and informed a revolution for women’s rights. 

The text is punctuated by portraits which are altered images of some of the highly skilled women who together embodied the fictional homemaker, Betty Crocker. Betty was created by General Mills to be a “living trademark” personifying their brand as an approachable expert. As a trusted American icon, her image has been adapted to reflect changing social, political, and economic trends. From 1921 until now, teams of culinary professionals have continued to perform in the test kitchens collectively instructing consumers from behind the brand. 

• 5.5 x 8.5 inches • perfect bound • 68 pages with 16 illustrations • printed on Mohawk Superfine • edition of 150 • printed 2026

Pooks can be purchased in the BOOKS section of our site.