--- title: Man Responds to Wife Who Wants Him to Clean Up His Garbage description: When this woman asked her husband to stop leaving garbage on the kitchen counter, he responded by turning his plastic wrapper into art. canonical: https://time.com/5559698/wrapper-art/ author: Rachel E. Greenspan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-03-27T16:36:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:58:24.540Z og:title: Man's Response to Wife Is Truly a Work of Art og:description: His response turned marital discord into the joke of the century og:url: https://time.com/5559698/wrapper-art/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Man's Response to Wife Is Truly a Work of Art twitter:description: His response turned marital discord into the joke of the century twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Man's Response to Wife Who Wants Him to Stop Leaving Garbage Around Is a Work of Art by [Rachel E. Greenspan](https://time.com/author/rachel-e-greenspan/) ## Rachel E. Greenspan Mar 27, 2019 4:36 PM UTC by [Rachel E. Greenspan](https://time.com/author/rachel-e-greenspan/) ## Rachel E. Greenspan Mar 27, 2019 4:36 PM UTC Usually, when a [significant other](http://time.com/5469804/couples-researcher-spouse-signficant-other-fight-argument/) leaves a [note on the kitchen counter](http://time.com/5202213/throw-away-things-in-your-kitchen-sponges/), it’s something [romantic](http://time.com/5274582/lifetime-harry-meghan-movie-best-moments/). But this man’s “artwork” was actually just a piece of garbage. Lizzie Swann [shared a photo](http://time.com/5512658/blue-ivy-takes-beyonces-instagram-photos/) of [her husband’s note](https://twitter.com/LizzieSwann1/status/1110614332793077760/photo/1) on Tuesday, writing that she asked him to stop leaving “empty wrappers” on the counters in their kitchen. Her husband responded thoughtfully to her request. > [](https://twitter.com/LizzieSwann1/status/1110614332793077760) The plastic snack wrapper was left beside a placard fit with everything from medium — “oatcake wrapper on marble” — to the title, year and artist. (‘Provocation,’ the artist, Tomas McAuley, named his work.) “Part of the famed ‘Annoyes’ school of visual artists, McAuley’s works have long sought to shock and to disturb, but ultimately to deepen our collective understanding of the human condition,” he wrote to his wife. “This work probes the intersectional boundaries of art to question,” he said, going on to outline how he can use “everyday materials” in demonstrating “the fundamental elision of the artistic and the human.” Though conventionally, it’s best to find common ground with your spouse, this husband’s gag earned thousands of likes and retweets on Twitter. It seems this creative troublemaker turned their marital discord into a work of art after all. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5559698/wrapper-art/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5559698/wrapper-art/"},"headline":"Man's Response to Wife Who Wants Him to Stop Leaving Garbage Around Is a Work of Art","datePublished":"2019-03-27T16:36:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:58:24.540Z","description":"His response turned marital discord into the joke of the century","url":"https://time.com/5559698/wrapper-art/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Rachel E. Greenspan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/rachel-e-greenspan/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5559698/wrapper-art/","name":"Man's Response to Wife Who Wants Him to Stop Leaving Garbage Around Is a Work of Art"}}]}] ```