LAURANETT LEE: Cooking on Saturday gives you some idea of why soul food is so good.

My name is Dr. Lauranett Lee. I'm a public historian.

It’s one of those pieces that gives you a glimpse into a moment in a woman’s workday where she’s over a stove basting a turkey. And it’s something that I remember from being with my grandmothers, both farm women, and being in the kitchen and watching the process.

What I really appreciate about this piece is seeing the detail in not only the person’s face, but her clothing in the stove in the oven, such focused attention to something that many people are familiar with.

NARRATOR: By uplifting domestic labor as worthy of artistic attention, the artist Leslie Garland Bolling drew inspiration from his own life, and invites us to do the same.

LAURANETT LEE: When we think about the 1930s – and we have to consider Bolling’s life, born in 1898 and deceased in 1955 – we're looking at a time when Virginia was segregated. There was so much legislation. African American people were restricted in where they lived, where they could work, the education that they could receive. And that Bolling was able to be so observant with these details about ordinary people really says a lot about what this work meant to him – the ability to see beyond stereotypes and glimpse someone not just doing something by rote but really engaged in what they're doing.