By Brittney McLaws
At BYU, laundry is a chore that requires physical strength, patience and quarters, but for one BYU student, laundry is art.
Graduate student Pam Bowman''s installation art display titled 'Endlessly Happy' is a creation that delves into the simple pleasure and beauty of doing laundry.
Bowman, who attended BYU for the first time when she was 17, returned for her graduate art degree after her husband accepted a mechanical engineering teaching position. She said her primary inspiration for the display came from her life.
'I was a stay-at-home mom, and still am, and in graduate school,' Bowman said. 'Doing laundry for all these years and other domestic tasks has caused me to reflect and question some of those issues of the repetitive work, of the importance of it, and things that it can represent and be a metaphor for in other parts of my life.'
According to the Niagara University Web site, installation art is created to fill a specific space that contains several mediums, dimensions, forms and senses.
'Endlessly Happy' is Bowman''s third installation at BYU and includes various sculptural forms, kinetic machines, sound and ambiance. The overall project has taken her six months to complete. However, collecting dryer lint for one of the installation components took over 15 months.
Bowman said it was the dryer lint that gave her the idea to do an installation on laundry.
'I was intrigued with the drier lint and I was reading about another artist who really used unusual materials from everyday life and was kind of obsessive about it,' Bowman said. 'That gave me the courage to go ahead and save it and do it.'
Initially, she said she was embarrassed to tell her husband she was collecting the lint. However, she said he thought it was great because it was free and installation can be very expensive.
Bowman said the support and encouragement of her husband and her family has been a great help to her despite their occasional confusion when it comes to her projects.
'They''re very supportive in physically helping me because I''m not very strong and physically this takes a lot of strength,' Bowman said, 'However, I think it''s taken awhile for some of them to learn and understand about the art, they''ve accepted it but questioned it at the same time.'
Additionally, Bowman struggled with the title of the project for some time. She said it finally clicked when she saw the photograph titled 'Happy Laundry Girls' that hangs on the east wall of the gallery. That image gave her a greater reference and meaning for the work.
'''Endless'' is a reference to God and God-like attributes,' Bowman said. 'There are things throughout the installation that refer to it. ''Endlessly Happy'' refers to endless joy.'
Lauren Brown, a freshman from Sandy, said the installation reflects the endless joy Bowman talks about and also brings simple beauty to life.
'I liked the perspective on an everyday task such as laundry doing,' said Brown. 'You can see that it''s art and it elevates everyday life aspects to an artistic point of view so that anyone doing laundry, in a sense, is doing something beautiful.'
'Endlessly Happy' can be seen in Gallery 303 in the Harris Fine Arts Center through March 12.