Art exhibit goes hand and glove with housework

Friday, Feb. 1, 2002 | 4:13 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

They are limp, compassionate, outspoken.

They've worked hard, dutifully fulfilling their obligatory role.

At times they appear exhausted. Often they retain their clever sense of humor.

They are the yellow-and-pink rubber work gloves featured in Constance Ehrlich's oil paintings and charcoal drawings.

On display through March 6 at the Charleston Heights Arts Center Gallery, "The Rubber Glove Myth of Power and Grace" is an exploration of the never-ending ritual of housework.

Though rubber work gloves are a "throwback to the past," most women, even today, still concede to "The Rubber Glove Myth," Ehrlich, of Lawrence, Kan., said.

The gloves "remain a timeless symbol of what is expected of women."

A realist painter who graduated in 1993 from the University of Kansas with a master's of fine arts degree in painting, Ehrlich focuses on women's and social issues portrayed through inanimate objects. Her subject matter ranges from semi-exotic underwear and condoms, to food, masks and toys.

Rubber cleaning gloves, she said, represent "the important but rarely considered topic of housework" -- a topic that is filled with irony.

"(Women) are supposed to clean their toilets, their ovens," she said, "but they're also supposed to keep their hands pretty."

In the paintings, rubber gloves are hog-piled, hang-dried (after being cleaned themselves), set amid religious imagery and placed among symbolically female items.

Her oil painting "Coming Of Age" features pink gloves set on a pink background next to an uncapped tube of lipstick, a butterfly that represents transformation and Dexatrim diet pills.

Her charcoal drawing "Hands of Time" features gloves set amid items that Ehrlich uses to symbolize a woman's journey through life. On one side of the piece there are, among others, a flower, the game of jacks, cherries and lipstick. On the other side is a wedding bell, a baby bottle and a cross.

In a series of four pieces titled "Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness," gloves are placed with the Virgin Mary.

"I revere the Virgin Mary," Ehrlich, who is Catholic, said. "She is a great female figure of purity, intelligence and goodness."

And, she added, "at some point she had to clean out the hut like the rest of us."

Though much of the exhibit is tongue-in-cheek, Ehrlich said there is a reverence in housework. She portrays this in a black-and-white charcoal drawing of an apron, hot pad, thimble and the Virgin Mary.

The drawing, she said, is an homage to her mother and grandmother.

"They took care of the family," Ehrlich said. "There is a need for that and a beauty for that. There is a lot of respect there.""