Mimi Smith

Open Door is part of a series of life-size contour drawings of architectural elements, furniture, and appliances that Mimi Smith made from knotted thread pinned to the wall. Her subject matter is based directly on the interior architecture and furnishings of the house that she and her family were living in at the time. The piece incorporates measuring tapes with thread, which Smith obsessively knotted, referencing women’s “handiwork” and underscoring the labor-intensive tedium of domestic tasks. In this and other works Smith suggests the efforts of the feminist movement of the 1970s to resist the limits of traditional female roles. The “open door” may be seen metaphorically as the gateway to possibilities that exist beyond the confines of homemaking and motherhood.