Finding my Focus

Over the last couple of days I've been doing some sporatic work in my studio, working on some color sketches and content/compositional ideas for a new series.  For the last three years I find I keep returning to a label from an old product called Rinso (shown below).  I am really drawn to the silhouettes of the 50s housewives it depicts.    

I've been doing some sketches based around the central figure for several months and while I was sketching out some other ideas the other night, I got to thinking about the role women played during that time; that in turn got me to thinking about the role they served just a decade earlier during the Second World War. I find it incredibly interesting that women were recruited to serve the country in numerous ways - in some instances they did the work of men (Rose the Riveter comes to mind) and in other instances they were used as pin-up models. In either case, they served a definite role and, from purely an observational point of view, the women seem to be quite proud to be so useful. Indeed they have a purpose. So imagine, then, what it was like for those women after the War ended. Their boyfriends or husbands came home; they moved to the shiny new suburbs and swapped their dungarees and hot pants for a dress, high heels and apron. I did some research and discovered that in the 50s only 1 in 3 women were employed. I can't help but to think that women must have doubted themselves from time to time, even if in the slightest way. Their role was to stay at home, take care of their children, clean the house, do the shopping, cook, and pamper their husband. Of course, that's the way the media spins it - perhaps that's just a stereotype based on a few and isn't how the majority lived.  Still, it does make me ponder.  In response to these thoughts, I started  a sketch that plays on all of these ideas that I thought I'd share.  I'm interested in what journey this will take me.