FUNDRAISING FOR THE FINAL PHASE OF BRINGING THIS PUBLICATION INTO THE WORLD!
〰️
FUNDRAISING FOR THE FINAL PHASE OF BRINGING THIS PUBLICATION INTO THE WORLD! 〰️
WORKSTYLES
The Social and Domestic Ecologies of Mildred’s Lane
For nearly three decades, Mildred’s Lane – a 93-acre historic agrarian landscape in northeastern Pennsylvania – has drawn hundreds of artists, thinkers, and makers into an ongoing experiment in social sculpture, collective labor, and ecological life. Workstyles is the first sustained account of what happened there, and why it matters.
The book is structured around seventeen Labor Portraits, allegorical and photographic, each introducing a section. The Ambassador of Entanglement: expanding overseer, part director, part steward. The Master Hooshress: one who shapes domestic space through conceptual arrangement and installation. The Digestion Choreographer: architect of the Kitchen Laboratory’s food systems. Fourteen more Labors complete a feminist, decentralized model of working and living rooted not in corporate theory but in the agrarian site itself; where household labor becomes sculptural and political practice, hierarchy gives way to fluid roles, and the entire site becomes the artwork.
Part compendium, part memoir, part feminist manifesto, and part archive, Workstyles traces the project’s intimate origins in contemporary motherhood; a son grew up here, a mother built a world around him and follows that world as it expands to include hundreds of collaborators working across the intersections of contemporary art, landscape, research, politics, food, symposia, and performance in everyday life.
Workstyles contributes a new vocabulary for understanding sculpture as lived infrastructure: behavioral, domestic, ecological, and collective. Mildred’s Lane is a lived practice. This book is its record.
Mark Dion "Mildred's Lane" Lithograph Print
Dear Friend of Mildred's Lane,
Above you will see the fundraising brochure introducing WORKSTYLES: The Social and Domestic Ecologies of Mildred's Lane — a publication three decades in the making, documenting one of the most sustained and singular experiments in contemporary art, collective labor, and ecological practice in the United States.
We are in the final phase of design and production and are reaching out to those who know and love this project — and to those who should. We are seeking to raise $30,000 to bring this book into the world. A dedicated web page for contributions.
We are accepting donations, selling art, and experiences to raise money for the WORKSTYLES book project.
This brochure was made possible by Peter Warny, naturalist and member of Mildred's Lane. Earlier support has been generously provided by the Abakanowicz Arts and Culture Charitable Foundation, and the Judith M. Powers Fund, all aiding in research, writing, and design.
Mark Dion Prints, J. Morgan Puett Drawings and Textile Projects, along with others. As an experience, you can RENT Mildred’s Lane for a period, long or short, this fall and winter.
Please help us finish this book:
We are looking forward to the deep work ahead as we move into the last phase, we are grateful to all who have carried this project forward.
WORKSTYLES will be published in 2027. We hope you will be part of making it happen.
With gratitude,
J. Morgan Puett
Ambassador of Entanglement Emeritus
Mildred's Lane Inc.
