When Art imitates Life

Chroma, Ancient Sculpture in Color And a Workshop about finding your Readers

Chroma was an exhibit recently on view at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

To describe the Met as a treasure trove is woefully inadequate. It is more of an Aladdin’s lamp, bringing forth wonderous mysteries, dangerous and musty in one corner, radiantly sunny with windows touching the sky the next. With few exceptions, for every warfare driven, violent thing that mankind does and seeks to do, the Met displays the opposite energy. From earrings and tea cups, to stringed instruments and the walls of temples, bits of papyrus, paintings and sculptures, humanity’s miraculous output dazzles the viewer. Even more remarkable, is the fact we can stroll past those things which do not interest us, even as we pursue those items we do seek.

History is like that. So is historical fiction. Below are two more statues from the Chroma exhibit.

If you were on some kind of field trip in grammar school, you may have walked right by this woman, assuming, she was just a run of the mill average Greek lady. But, if you had seen her as she was made at the time, she would have looked something more like this:

Colorful, vibrant, yet pensive, as if she’s unsure of her lover, or whether she’s prepared an evening meal in a way that will please those who dine at her house.

Often, when poking around history, looking through the records of our ancestors, we only see statues where the paint has worn away. It’s easy to assume that the faded, stone colored figure is the one who lived centuries ago, rather than the girl in a pistachio colored tunic, with a face full of doubt.

My new project involves the Second World War. Already fiercely lived lives from not that long ago, have begun to spring forward. Discover us, they challenge. Discover us and make a story from it. Bring us to life, and do it in color.

Please check out my announcement to the workshop being led by Eva Natiello on the Fascinating Live Ones section of this newsletter….. it’s about finding one’s readers. A very necessary component when writing one’s book!