Packed In a Trunk: Documentary takes viewers inside a detective story
Written by Samelia Bankole, contributor
Image by Barbara Green
SCAD aTVfest showed a special screening of the documentary film “Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson,” on Feb. 5th in the Digital Media Center. The documentary film tells the story of little known 19th century painter Edith Wilkinson.
The film focuses on Wilkinson’s great niece Jane Anderson as she tries to uncover more about her aunt’s life. Her artistic career was cut short in 1925 when she was admitted to a mental asylum in West Virginia.
With a duration of 78 minutes long, the documentary followed Anderson and her partner Tess Ayers’ journey to discover Wilkinson’s artistic past and make her talents known. Their journey takes them from California to West Virginia and back to Provincetown, Massachusetts. The documentary immediately draws the viewer in with an intriguing family story about Anderson’s parents finding a trunk in the attic of her aunt and uncle’s home.
This trunk had Wilkinson’s sketches and paintings and her parents decided to take it home to their own house. Anderson grew up admiring Wilkinson’s work, becoming an artist herself saying, about Wilkinson, “She taught me how to paint.”
One of the most entertaining parts of the film is when the women return to Provincetown where her aunt was a part of an artist colony from 1915-25. The blend of Anderson’s charm and humor is fun to watch as she talks with historians, artists and curators and learns more about her aunt.
While there, the two women learn of Wilkinson’s favorite places of inspiration, her artist friends and her dream of travelling to Paris to paint. There was a touching moment when Anderson is talking to a curator about the gallery she is planning for Wilkinson’s work and asks her, “Does a work have to be sold to have value?”
The curator responds saying, “It doesn’t have to be sold to have value. The fact that she made it, it has value.” With each new discovery, Anderson becomes more dedicated to making the gallery a success, showing Wilkinson’s work to Provincetown residents. You see her smiles and tears.
The screening was followed by a Q&A session with the filmmakers, Michele Boyaner and Tess Ayers. The filmmakers talked about the coincidences that link both Anderson and Wilkinson. One was that both women loved St. Joan of Arc and owned the same Joan of Arc book. Also, the filmmakers revealed how they had to cut the film down to 78 minutes and to do that, they decided to build a story that focused on learning about a portion of Wilkinson’s life, leaving some questions unanswered. This documentary was successful in revealing to viewers the beauty and value of an artist’s life, even if the artist was packed away in a trunk.
