Willie Cole has been using irons in his work for more than 20 years, since the day he found an old iron on the street and had the thought that it reminded him of a mask. Recalling that discovery, Cole says, “Once I realized it looked like an African mask I became aware that African art has a kind of hidden power. The evidence of that power is manifested through ritual, dance, and possession. In my art, the manifestation of the power of the iron is in the scorch.” Once Cole started making sculptures out of the iron, he began to recognize its presence in his own life. His great grandmother, as a domestic worker, did a lot of ironing. His grandmother as a teenager joined her mom as a domestic worker. Cole himself had made a lot of attempts as a kid to repair irons when they broke down. As an artist, he has used irons as raw materials for sculptures; used them as tools with which to scorch patterns that create other images on surfaces; and, in the case of works like this one, used them as figurative elements to tell a direct story about his own life and the broader history of African American domestic labor.