About the work

She learned to wring towels like this in a small apartment building in Naples, on a vacation that stretched into three years. There was no dryer, and the landlord, a stoic woman with hands like carved wood, showed her the precise twist needed to keep water from pooling on the tiled balcony. The suds are different now, a harsher smell, but the movement is identical: a practiced economy of effort. The sun is different too, the kind that bleaches rather than bakes, but the warmth on her skin is a familiar comfort. She knows the sound of the machines, the rhythm of the rinse cycle, the hum of the fluorescent tube overhead. Yet, she can never quite remember if she really saw that much sunlight in Naples.