A Long Dress

A visual interpretation of the poem A Long Dress from Tender Buttons: Objects, Food, Rooms, in 1914 by Gertrude Stein.

That is the current that makes machinery,
that makes it crackle,
what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist.
What is this current. 
What is the wind, what is it. 

Where is the serene length,
it is there and a dark place is not a dark place,
only a white and red are black, only a yellow and green are blue,
a pink is scarlet, a bow is every color. A line distinguishes it.
A line just distinguishes it. 

Gertrude Stein

Concealed in a two-toned envelope, the opening and interaction follows the chronology of the poem. Discovering each piece as the audience follows each line of the poem. I interpreted the poem to be about women’s suffrage and the hardship of being the female race.  These women were the working class, but were being refused rights based on their gender.

In my opinion the poem could also be alluding to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911.