The Michael S. Currier Center Gallery at The Putney School will present ‘The Weight,’ a soft sculpture show by artist Ruth Shafer. The exhibit will open January 10 — March 1. There will be an Opening Reception on Friday, January 10 from 4:30 p.m. — 6 p.m.

The Weight

Arms. Legs. Feet. A soft, comforting embrace when you get home. A place of pride and a back bent from service.

Am I describing your mother, or your couch?

Made up of four soft sculpture installations, The Weight asks the viewer to consider the myriad overlapping ways that the feminine body and domestic service are taken for granted. As our most intimate memories are formed while surrounded by fabrics, so are our expectations of domestic labor, emotional support, and gender identity. With humor (boob pillows!) and rage (are women furniture?), these pieces ask the viewer to confront their assumptions about comfort and responsibility.

This show was created with the support of a Creation Grant, awarded by the Vermont Arts Council in 2021.

About the Artist

Ruth Shafer sculpts at the intersection of craft, domesticity, and feminism. By conflating the female form with furniture and furnishings, Shafer explores the feminine body’s place in the home, in art history, and in the ways that the past becomes the future. With humor, abstraction, and the familiarity of repurposed fabrics, Shafer’s work confronts the dualities of domesticity; safety vs confinement, decoration vs identity, opportunity vs obligation. She works from her home studio in Brattleboro, Vermont.