Packed In A Trunk – Edith Lake Wilkinson

This HBO documentary about the life and art of Edith Lake Wilkinson initially got me to watch by saying that she was put into an insane asylum and never heard from again. As I have mentioned before, art from “insane people” is usually the best, so I was interested in seeing what kind of demons she was wrestling with. Within minutes, I had already figured out the demon.

She was a lesbian in the early 1900s.

Ok, so does that interest me enough to watch? They added in that she was put into an insane asylum, which I assumed was because she was gay. Turns out that there were some other factors. She spent 30 years in the asylum.

If I had watched this documentary without the psychic medium part, it would have been just another story. Supposedly, the medium was not given any information beforehand. What she revealed was the most amazing and revealing part of the whole documentary!

This is a feel-good documentary worth watching.

American artist. Edith Lake Wilkinson. ELW.