Everybody has a story about the lowest point in their life; the time when they hit rock bottom. My stint as a towel hag was the unequivocal nadir of my life. I have never experienced such despair, nor do I hope to ever again. Of course, my decision to work in the baths didn’t happen in a vacuum. A horribly dysfunctional relationship helped to cloud my judgment. Depression can make you do some crazy shit.
The Barracks was known as “Toronto’s Leather and Denim Bathhouse”. It occupied 26 Widmer Street from 1974 to 2005. I worked there in the late 1990’s as a towel hag (or bathhouse attendant to the uninitiated). I used to tell people I did it for the glamour. 12 hour shifts in a smoky, windowless hole, up to my armpits in spunk-splattered sheets and drunken louts. Very glam.
The endless shifts, the mind-numbing repetitiveness of the work and the abject squalor of the place were unbearable. I spent much of my time at the Barracks in a small room we called “the cage”. It was a cramped space surrounded by black wooden bars and offered absolutely no privacy. It was the perfect manifestation of how I felt trapped in my life. Caged.
I turned to cutting out paper dolls…
PHILIP HARE, from his Artist Statement for his new installation work, Towel Hag: Scenes from a Bathhouse, now through July 30 at Off the Map Gallery, 712 Lansdowne Avenue, The Back Building.
Artist: Philip Hare
