Michele Tydd has discovered an artistic approach to washing up, regarding this one as more of a Felix Gonzalez-Torres structure with an emphasis on minimalist savagery. Photos: Michele Tydd.
My dishwasher died a fortnight ago.
Its parting note was an F1 error, and after a quick chat with Google I knew it was the end of the road for my Miele workhorse.
We had been best friends for six years. I’d feed it every day with a balanced diet of dirty dishes, saucepans and stained wine glasses, and it rewarded me ten-fold with gleaming table wear.
The very same week this catastrophe occurred, my car radiator blew up and I was seen dashing along Northcliffe Drive, Berkeley, with the wind in my hair in the passenger seat of an NRMA pick-up truck.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say I felt caught up in a cruel domestic mechanical revolt.
But it was the loss of the dishwasher that was most disturbing because I had forgotten how to wash up, and what made it worse was that I have a sink with a draining platform the size of an envelope.
It meant I had to wash up, wipe up and repeat that about four times, and the only way to get around it was to take a vertical approach.
But a miraculous change happened on day three.
This one is more of a “sudsy Monet with a burst of colour and energy”.
As I stepped back after the first washing cycle and began pulling off my rubber gloves, I saw what can only be described as a vision of beauty with Asian influences, created with no conscious thought.
The drudgery of dishwashing was suddenly displaced by a whole new perspective. By the end of the week, I was looking forward to clearing the dishes to get stuck into this new realm of creativity.
After failing at lessons in knitting, crocheting, decoupage, bonsai and ukulele, I had unleashed my inner visual artist.
As time went on I embraced different techniques. My first attempt was what I call sudsy Monet with a burst of colour and energy. That merged into a Felix Gonzalez-Torres structure with emphasis on minimalist savagery.
I was spinning out on a glorious washing-up detergent high … that is, until the phone buzzed three days ago.
“Ms Tydd, your new Miele dishwasher has arrived at the warehouse, so when can we deliver?”
Tempted to say, “On the 12th of never”, I paused for a moment before noticing a bank-up of dirty saucepans, dishes and cutlery in the holding bay, and at that moment I shamelessly tossed my art to the wind.
“How does tomorrow sound?” I said.
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