Household Chores

Textile artists seem to be drawn to the subject of household chores. Caren Garfen has produced a series of pieces on the subject, often working onto items like tea towels. The quilt shown above includes a whole range of kitchen equipment and furniture. A detail is shown below.
Maxine Sutton also looks at those small everyday tasks like hanging out washing or sewing on a button (below).

Chloe Cheese is a print maker who often uses monoprinting as a technique. She produced an alphabet series using everyday items as inspiration (see above and below).
Lucian Freud was best known for his figurative painting, but he sometimes turned his attention to everyday objects around him, such as the kitchen sink (below).
Zhang Enli takes this idea further by focusing on all the empty paint cans, buckets and pots that were scattered around his studio.
Vermeer specialised in painting intimate interiors, the women of the household performing day to day tasks, such as a maid pouring milk (below).
Edgar Degas produced many studies of women ironing in a laundry. He was particularly interested in the light, but had sympathy for the women as he would often show them tired and worn out from their labours.

Collect, Select, Arrange

The blog entitled 'Things Organised Neatly' is a great source of inspiration. Everyday people submit new images- sometimes accidental finds, sometimes their own compositions. The image above is from 'Photobotanicus' by Barry Rosenthal
Illustrator Julia Rothman creates repeat patterns from everyday objects like these shoes (below). They can be used for wrapping paper, wallpaper or book covers.
Any artist who paints a still life subject will 'collect, select and arrange' their chosen objects. Scottish artist Samuel Peploe could create beautiful compositions from the simplest of subjects (below).
Peter Blake is renowned for his collections of toys, cigarette cards badges and other curiosities. He regularly arranges them into compositions often based on colour themes.
Both Andy Goldsworthy's work (above) and Sue Lawty's work (below) involves collecting and arranging natural materials often in the environment in which they were found. Goldsworthy's creations are allowed to naturally decay away, the photograph being the only evidence of it's existence. Lawty will often weave found material to create more permanent structures
American artist Jayne Mount creates illustrations of peoples favourite books.