The Laundry Line

Connecting women through storytelling since 2018.

Wash.

Dry.

Fold.

Repeat.

The Laundry Line is an invitation to rethink how we care for our communities by holding space for each other’s experiences and by making our stories visual, tangible, heard, seen, and connected.

The Laundry Line is a reimagined community art project that amplifies the stories of women by creating opportunities for women to share their experiences through all forms of creative storytelling and join them together on the line.

The Laundry Line is an extension and metamorphosis of Airing Out the “Dirty” Laundry. Whereas Airing Out the “Dirty” Laundry was a response to the silencing of women, The Laundry Line is a call to action: a call for us to continue to join our voices, stories, and hearts together, and in a way that surpasses geographic location and will endure for generations to come. The symbolic representation of transforming laundry, a domestic chore typically reserved for women and fraught with its own history of racism in our country into a platform for women’s storytelling is empowering and beautiful.

Laundry is a homemaking task where the work is never done. This work, although not glamorous, is essential to sustain our lives. So much of the work we do together to build and support our communities is unseen and unheard. It takes time for cultures, policies, laws, and institutions to change. Storytelling allows us to give voice to our unique experiences, take ownership of our narratives, heal, and foster deep connection with others. When we share our stories and labor in this work together, we know our value and find and share our strength.

For six years, Airing Out the “Dirty” Laundry offered an empowering space for more than 400 women to share their stories and experiences and join. Andrea’s dear friend, Lynnsy Logue oftentimes referred to the clothesline as the “lifeline” that weaves us and our stories together.

The Laundry Line can be a part of our powerful act of resistance at a time that feels dark, threatening, and regressive, and perhaps the greatest expression of care and love for our communities. The president-elect and the people in our country who stand with him plan to further strip away our freedoms, rights, and liberties. They promise a path of destruction that will cause even deeper harm. It is easy for us to get caught up in feeling as though we have to defend everything all at once. And, we have agency over how we respond and where we put our heart and energy as we move forward. 

We are not alone.

We are beautiful.

We all have a story to tell.

The first Laundry Days/Storytelling Calls took place in the warm space of Andrea’s family room in Matthews, North Carolina. Since then, women have gathered together in homes, kitchens, classrooms, community centers, outdoor spaces, and virtually. Through partnerships with individuals, community groups, institutions, and organizations storytelling workshops have occurred in neighborhoods and communities throughout the country and internationally.

Andrea is currently creating opportunities and holding space for women to share their stories virtually and join them together online as a part of The Laundry Line's ever-growing collection of women's stories. 

Andrea welcomes opportunities to work collaboratively and in partnership with individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions who are equally passionate about the purpose of The Laundry Line--to amplify and hold space for women's stories and experiences.

Please contact Andrea directly to chat about the possibilities. [email protected]

Past Collaborators + Community Partners:

Ann Turiano and Iron Crow Theatre

Free Fall Baltimore and Baltimore Office of Promotion and The Arts

Charlotte Pride

Charlotte Reproductive Action Network

Charlotte Lit

Charlotte Women's Movement

Guerilla Poets

Charlotte Mecklenburg Library

Independent Artist, Bree Stallings

CLTextile

Hannah Hasan and Epoch Tribe

Project Enough

Trans Day of Remembrance event partners at Time Out Youth

Winthrop University Galleries

Pink Boots Society of North Carolina

UNC Charlotte's Triota WGST Honor Society and Tales from Down There

Girls Rock Charlotte

The Mint Museum Uptown

Wells Fargo

BOOM Festival

Comfest - Community Festival in Columbus, Ohio

*The Laundry Line holds space for all women across the intersections of race, age, color, ability, faith, religion, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, social class, economic class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.