“This fascinating documentary tracks nine years in the life of Elise Bainbridge Hill, a gifted artist brought low by drugs and mental illness. As a teenager she ran away to New York, where she fell into prostitution and addiction; in rehab she learned to paint, sculpt, make dolls, and design jewelry. Hill later found another avenue of expression as a stripper, but with the gentrification of Times Square she lost her job, her wits, and eventually her studio in a converted air shaft near Carnegie Hall. Director Karen Gehres avoids judgment, sentiment, and cliché as she traces the links between artistic sensibility and madness, helped by the frankness and wry humor of her resilient subject”—Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader

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