Insomniac artist makes dress using 2,000 sleeping pill prescription labels

Artist Erica Spitzer Rasmussen said she got inspiration to make a dress entirely from prescription pill labels in a dream.

Speaking on the dress to a blog, Rasmussen said:

“About three years ago, after a particularly restless night, I finally fell asleep in the early morning hours ... Shortly thereafter the alarm clock woke me and I wrote ‘dreaming of sleep’ on a pad of paper next to the bed.”

Fittingly called “Dreaming of Sleep”, the dress took four months, 2,000 replicas of her sleeping pill prescription labels and four rolls of custom wallpaper to create.

Rasmussen scanned a page full of sleeping pill labels, which she had saved for years, and ordered rolls of custom-printed wallpaper from the Spoonflower website.

The 47-year old said she uses clothing as subject matter because it provides her a ground on which to investigate identity and corporeality.

Speaking more on the creation, Rasmussen said:

“Sadly, a satisfying night’s sleep for me generally requires medication. ‘Dreaming of Sleep’ is a self-portrait that illustrates my dependence on those staples of the pharmaceutical industry,”

See a photo of the dress above.