Boston-based conceptual artist Douglas Weathersby owns and operates Environmental Services (ES), his cleaning and repair company that serves as both his livelihood and his art practice.

ES provides on-site cleaning, repair, organizing and contracted jobs that double as installations and subject matter for photographs, videos and vinyl wrap murals. His work is an exploration of the surmised divide between artistic activity and maintenance.

In his words, "how do we differentiate... art and life, process and product?" Office or art installation? Art as the element of performance or lemonade stand? Not properly categorized as lofty ideas, though, his work is ironic and light. This heightened attention to ordinary objects and commissioning of their transformation--or perhaps simply the acknowledgment of it--distinguishes it as not only art, but philosophy.

Environmental Services / Douglas Weathersby ES Paint Shed, 2010 canvas dropcloths, acrylic paint, paint cans, storage pod, ladders, mops, rollers and broom.

Courtesy Proper Medium 2010