Missing Stories
Rita Yanny
Collage
$300
Artist Statement
This collage is my response to the play’s story of Rachel Jackson, which focused on the terrible treatment she endured after the public learned that when she married Andrew Jackson in 1791, she was in fact still married to Lewis Robards. Robards was said to have been cruel and jealous. Because Rachel believed that he had secured their divorce, but he had not, she and Jackson were required to remarry in 1794, after the divorce did become final.
At the same time I was learning about Rachel Jackson, I was also reading the incredible novel Homegoing, in which Yaa Gyasi writes, “So when you study history, you must always ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth?”
Rachel Jackson died in 1828, after her husband’s election but before his inauguration, so she never really served as First Lady. As I read more about her, I also discovered other stories. At the Hermitage, the Jackson plantation where she spent most of her life, she was responsible for managing enslaved people. And in 1813 the Jacksons adopted a Muskogee child whose family had been massacred at the Battle of Tallushatchee. This battle was ordered by General Andrew Jackson. The title of my piece acknowledges these and other missing stories.
About the Artist
Rita Yanny has exhibited her collages and paintings in galleries and museums in Japan and in the United States. Her mixed media pieces explore and translate expressive and energetic qualities. Rita is a visual arts educator and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her collage technique includes combining photo fragments, drawings, prints, cloth, and repurposed materials with a variety of media, including paint, pastels, and ink. She also writes as part of her creative process, embedding words in the layers of her textured pieces. The surrealistic quality of Rita’s final images allows the viewer to embrace many interpretations and possibilities of meaning.