Erica Spitzer Rasmussen is an insomniac. A good night’s sleep for the artist from St. Paul, Minnesota usually requires medication. Unlike most of us who would bemoan their time counting sheep or tossing and turning the night away, Rasmussen decided to use her own experience of insomnia to create a work of a beautiful work of art:

Dreaming of Sleep is the title of Rasmussen’s “sculptural object.” A floor-length nightgown made from 2,000 prescriptions for sleeping pills. The idea came to her about three years ago after a particularly restless night:

“I finally fell asleep in the early morning hours. When I reached a few fleeting moments of sleep, I dreamt about sleeping peacefully. Shortly thereafter the alarm clock woke me and I wrote ‘dreaming of sleep’ on a pad of paper next to the bed.

“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.

 

 
The four-foot high nightgown took four months to complete and is made from eight-foot rolls of customized “wallpaper” created from scans of sleeping tablet prescriptions.

“The nightgown was intentionally executed in a simplistic shape and lack-luster palette to refer to the sterile, clinical fashion associated with the medical community.”

Rasmussen describes herself as an artist who “creates handmade paper garments, neckwear and small editions of hand-bound books.” Her sculptural and wearable works are exhibited internationally and can be seen here.
 

 
More after the jump…