Public Pedagogy of Everyday Objects

Part 1: Good Guide

The website, Good Guide is exciting to educate yourself on the products that you routinely use your the household. I found that once I started in this discovery I couldn’t stop with entering product after product. I have always tried to purchase products that are eco-friendly and are not harmful for my family. Since I do have two little children, I have always kept an eye out on harsh chemicals in products and also in food items. My son has a life threatening dairy allergy so every food product I purchase usually has some intense research of ingredients and the company and brand itself prior to buying. I feel that because of his allergy I am aware of the not so good items and the better ones out there on the market. However, I mostly used the Good Guide to focus mainly household cleaning products. I use the brand, Mrs. Meyers cleaning products and once inputting the information the return from the website came back with a clean bill of ok to use! The products are all plant based, which usually means that they are fine for the environment and to use within the walls of your home without danger. My husband and I take environment needs very seriously and what we have around our children, so using this site made it even more reassuring that we are doing the right thing in our decisions.

Part 2: House Metaphors

As soon as I viewed the artist list that was attached to the assignment I was insistently focused to spend the most time engaging with Andrea Zittel. I have been an enormous supporter of her since I was a freshman in college. I had the opportunity to visit an exhibit of hers at the MoMa in New York City. The exhibition was entitled, Critical Space, which was about living in small environments. I remember thinking to myself at that age how it was amazing to take spaces that no one would think of living in and devoting time and energy into making it your everything, your place of residence. She took a half sized trailer and converted into a house, it was truly amazing to see this and realize that the larger space you have is not necessarily important. In the attached piece that Zittel offered was a 41-ton concrete floating landmass off the coast of Denmark. Andrea decided to live there for one month to escape reality of everyday “normal” life. She did in fact have visitors, which the visitors were able to know the exact location of Zittel since the mass of land art was attached to the mainland of Denmark.

Part 3: Table Talk

Table name "Assigned Seats" every time I engage myself long enough with this table I think of my childhood and the assigned seats that we had. I was given this table when I married and moved in with my husband from my parents. A lot of what we received when we first were married was used, which we kept for several years but then got rid of and replaced with our style and love. This table however is something I could never get rid of. This table has been in our family since I was able to walk; it was always a place that we gathered everyday for breakfast together as a family and nighttime for dinner. When I sit at this table there are so many fond memories that I have, however the most felt emotion is the places that we sat as a family. We had “our” seats. My father always sat at the chair closest to the door in the kitchen, my mother sat closest to the stove, my sister sat on the bench usually with so many magazines on the side she had to move them every night and I sat closest to the sink on a single chair, not a bench. Now that I have this table and a family of my own, I made it a point to not have assigned seats. The reason being, I like change, I want my children to see a variety of this table and in different views. As a child I only saw one view, which I didn’t mind but always thought it would be enjoyable to see the table from a different angle. My son will sometimes sit on the bench or a single chair, its fun now to figure out where we are going to sit depending upon his feeling of where he wants to sit that day. This table means so much to me, since I have only ever had this table in my life, I have never enjoyed sitting at a oval or circular table because it just doesn’t feel right to eat at. Its amazing how a material object can make your mind think a certain way when it is such a constant in your life from a child. This kitchen table has many memories ranging from good to bad, however I enjoy thinking about every one of those memories. They range from: making apples pies as a child with my father, my mother teaching me how to make Spanish food, wrapping Christmas gifts, watching my grandmother die at the table and seeing my father perform CPR and bringing her back to life, celebrations of holidays, fixing my fathers tubing tape for his drains to his liver during his cancer treatment, having a hospice nurse coming to our house and sitting us down at that table and telling us my father had less than six hours to live. Along with the good memories are painful memories, however this table means the world to me and has been such a solid material in my life since I was a child, which I intend to allow my children to experience as well.