Laundry Done, Reasonable Rates, c.1950

Vermont is one of a handful of states in the nation that has a “Right to Dry” law, making it permissible to hang laundry outside on a clothesline, the rules and regulations of a condominium or homeowners association notwithstanding.

The title that Walton Blodgett gave his painting is evidence that washing, drying, and ironing other people’s dirty clothes and linens was one way for a Vermont farmwife to supplement her family’s income. “A hard way to earn a living,” says Lyman Orton, “especially since the husband in Blodgett’s painting isn’t lifting a hand as he sits on the porch reading the paper.”

Walton Blodgett is well represented in The Orton Collection by watercolors and serigraphs of outdoor views of Vermont. Blodgett was from Cleveland, Ohio, studied art in New York City, and in the mid-1930s was among the group of American Scene Painters under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) arts programs working at that time in Key West, Florida. He came to live and work in Stowe, Vermont, around 1941, and he stayed for twenty-two years.