New Work: The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper

9.5  x 15  inches

ingredients:  vintage book cover, found objects, cut-outs, lace, vintage ephemera, decorative papers, vintage photograph, feather, pen nib

This piece is based on an 1892 short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an important piece of early feminist literature. In the story, the protagonist is confined to an upstairs bedroom for a "rest cure" for what would now probably be diagnosed as post-partum depression.  She is forbidden to work (she's a writer), and begins to obsess about the yellow wallpaper and what might be lurking behind it, eventually tearing it off the walls. According to Wikipedia, "The story depicts the effect of confinement on the narrator's mental health and her descent into psychosis."

 I've always been fascinated by the story, and in fact, wrote a paper on it in college, wherein I compared the theme of madness in The Yellow Wallpaper to it's use in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.  Gilman's story is a bit creepy, yes, but so well-written, and really gives us a shocking and sad view of how such illnesses were treated back then.

 Some details:

 

 Hope you like it!