“I’ve been everywhere man” by Johnny Cash but sung by the amazing
has been my sound track these past few days. I’ve been traversing MA teaching classes, West to East and North to South. Last month I was back in Provincetown to teach at the Provincetown Art Museum for the second consecutive year. It’s become a highlight in my year.It was a rainy day in Provincetown when I was introduced to the work of Edith Lake Wilkinson. Since learning about her I have felt like I need to write an addendum to last years article Maude, Ethel, Edna and Blanche: The Printmakers of Provincetown because Edith belongs there and needs to claim her rightful place.
Edith Lake Wilkinson was born in 1868 in Wheeling West Virginia, a town now known for its manufacture of cut iron nails and fried pickles! (many years ago I stopped at a diner there on a RoadFood road trip and picked up a cute green parlor guitar from a drab music shop- but that’s a story for another day)
Back to Edith at 20 she moved to NYC to study art at the Arts Student League of New York, she lived at 45 West 25th Street and earned a degree from Columbia Teacher’s College. She lived in NYC with her longtime female companion (yes partner), Fannie Wilkinson (no relation). Eventually she moves from lower Manhattan to 420 West 119th Street – Morningside Heights (my favorite part of NYC) where she created this embroidered piece around 1900
Soon after graduating from college she began going to Provincetown where she became a member of the Provincetown Arts Colony. She studied art with Charles Webster Hawthorne and Ambrose Webster, and was good friends with Blanche Lazzell. She also took up block printing, in particular a method known as the White-Line print, a technique started in 1915 by a group of artists who called themselves The Provincetown Printers. There are several white-line prints by Wilkinson which are signed and dated 1914, which pre-dates the earliest known prints by any of the others. So she may have been the originator of the “White-Line print”
However, this is where her story takes a nasty turn.
On March 22, 1924, Edith was admitted to the Sheppard Pratt Institution, an asylum for the mentally ill in Baltimore, Maryland she was in what was described as a "paranoid state". on October 2 that same year she was released her condition having sufficiently improved. However, just five months later, on February 10, 1925, she was readmitted to where she remained for the next ten years! All of Wilkinson's possessions, including most of her artwork, were packed into trunks and shipped to her nephew, Edward Vossler, in Wheeling. Edward was the only son of her sister Jane who died a year after givg birth In March 1935, Edith was transferred to Huntington State Hospital in West Virginia, still described as paranoid and now, at age 66, showing early signs of dementia. There she remained until her death at 88 years old on July 19, 1957.
(There is no evidence that she painted or did any artwork in the 30 years that she was institutionalized)
Edith had inherited an estate of approximately $35,000 (worth around $500,000 today) which was administered by local Wheeling attorney George J. Rogers. Years later, Rogers would be indicted for embezzling money from a number of his clients. He eventually declared bankruptcy, left the law profession and, by 1940, was working as a salesman for a household paper products company. It is suspected that he had her committed to “steal her inheritance”, he also did not approve of her lifestyle. Edith is another artist who must be added to the Queer Art Canon.
In my next post I will update you all on my women artists from around the world project I begun last year- getting to know one woman artist from every country in the world!
Summer Reading/Listening and Watching List:
I love it when my students recommend books and movies to me. Here are a few I have read and enjoyed this summer, all recommended from students I’ve met teaching here there and everywhere.
Recommended reading:
The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd inspired me to learn more about the real life Eliza Lucas Pinckney and the History of Growing Indigo in South Carolina The Letterbook of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, 1739-1762
Horse by Geraldine Brooks
The Gods of Tango by Carolina De Robertis
Witch Hunt by Kristen J. Sollee
Don’t Sleep, there are Snakes (Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle
The Secret Life of Sunflowers by Dana Marton (Marta Molnar)
To Speak for the Trees by Diana Beresford-Kroeger
Recommended movies:
Packed in a trunk The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson
Finding Vivian Maier (this one I watched years ago but revisited recently)
Music Recommendation: Laufey: Bewitched Goddess edition (recommended by Zoe Lemos Music
Art Shows I have seen this Summer and Recommend:
Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts: Frida Kahlo: Sus Fotos
Look Again: Portraits of Daring Women by Julie Lapping Rivera I highly recommend this one, an homage to exceptional, pioneering women working across centuries. In a series of hand-carved, woodcut and collage prints, Leverett-based artist Julie Rivera (American, b. 1956) highlights the lives and achievements of women who defied the status quo. Rivera’s portraits invite the viewer to consider who is included, and omitted, from narratives of history today
MET Cloisters (this one was a challenge to myself as I really am not a fan of medieval art but love the architecture -windows, columns, ornate stone work, arches and of course gardens and unicorns. While there I challenged myself to make an artist book inspired by the details I photographed while there. It’s still very much a work in progress)
Fotographiska: Vivian Maier : Unseen Work
And Three Shows I am hoping to get to next time i’m in NYC
Neue Gallery: PAULA MODERSOHN-BECKER: ICH BIN ICH / I AM ME
MOMA:Käthe Kollwitz
Met: Sleeping Beauties
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Help needed
Friends I could use your help I am looking to expand my teaching venues for my “Art that Breathes” classes out a little I’m looking for possible teaching venues in the Hudson Valley, Southern VT, Maine, NH, NYC, NJ, PA and beyond. Botanical Gardens, Museum Schools, Printing Studios/Art Centers/Workshop Retreats are all good fits. I come with stellar recommendations! I also do privately set up workshops for friend groups (please inquire re: rates)
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Still time to catch a few Summer Workshops (Fall Dates coming soon!)
Saturday, July 20th 3:00 – 5:00pm Belding Library Ashfield MA
Infinity bookmaking
August 16-18th Cyanotype on Fabric and Making Cyanotype Book Cloth
Blazing Star Herbal School Conway MA
Sat Aug 24th Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University, Boston
Intro to Eco Printing (free)
Fri August 30th Creative Retreat in the Garden, Eco Printing with Flowers on Paper Conway MA
My art work is currently showing (month of July) at the Post Office in Ashfield, MA
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Thankyou - and I loved learning and reading about Edith.