the yellow wallpaper
The Yellow Wallpaper
This photographic series was inspired by Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1892 feminist short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, along with a daily ritual that began while I was in graduate school at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Each morning, I took long walks and started collecting sturdy pinecones I found along the way. Around the same time, I was deeply immersed in Gilman’s unsettling story about confinement, identity, and psychological unraveling.
After a conversation with my mentor, artist Ellen Rothenberg, who asked, “How can you use your daily practice as part of your art?”, something unexpectedly clicked.
I began combining pinecones with plastic doll arms, legs, and shoes, creating strange female figures that felt at times unsettling, vulnerable, humorous, and oddly alive. I then photographed them against glowing yellow backgrounds inspired by the atmosphere of the story itself.
What began as an ordinary daily habit slowly evolved into an entire surreal world.
This photographic series was inspired by Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1892 feminist short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, along with a daily ritual that began while I was in graduate school at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Each morning, I took long walks and started collecting sturdy pinecones I found along the way. Around the same time, I was deeply immersed in Gilman’s unsettling story about confinement, identity, and psychological unraveling.
After a conversation with my mentor, artist Ellen Rothenberg, who asked, “How can you use your daily practice as part of your art?”, something unexpectedly clicked.
I began combining pinecones with plastic doll arms, legs, and shoes, creating strange female figures that felt at times unsettling, vulnerable, humorous, and oddly alive. I then photographed them against glowing yellow backgrounds inspired by the atmosphere of the story itself.
What began as an ordinary daily habit slowly evolved into an entire surreal world.
