Creativity Friday: Interview and giveaway with Stephanie Cowell, author of Claude & Camille

For today’s Creativity Friday, I’m thrilled to have as my guest acclaimed historical fiction novelist Stephanie Cowell. Stephanie’s luminous novels feature the passions and struggles as well as the intimate daily world of artists, writers and musicians of the past: Claude Monet half a century before he painted the water lilies (CLAUDE & CAMILLE), the unmarried Mozart choosing between four musical sisters (MARRYING MOZART), Shakespeare leaving his resentful family in Stratford to try make it as a playwright in London (THE PLAYERS). She is currently writing a novel about a much-loved writer from the nineteenth century — but more about that below.

Stephanie was also a guest at the gallery last month as part of our as part of our ongoing Authors at the Gallery series. It was so inspiring to meet her in person! (Her reading is available to watch here.)

My interview today is about her just-released novel, CLAUDE & CAMILLE (Crown Books). CLAUDE & CAMILLE relates the not-so-well-known tragic love story of the young, unknown Claude Monet and his great love and muse Camille Doncieux. I thoroughly enjoyed it and think you will too. So we’re giving away a copy of it to one lucky blog commenter. (Rules are posted after the interview.)

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Kris Waldherr: You’ve mentioned viewing the Impressionist paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City as an inspiration for CLAUDE & CAMILLE. Was there a particular “eureka” moment that led you to discovering the story of Monet’s first wife and muse, Camille Doncieux?

Stephanie Cowell: Well, not, actually! I fell in love with the friendships of the men there. Of course my husband-to-be was with me, his hand on my shoulder (which was a most entrancing feeling as we had just recently met), so the feeling of love was in the air. I had a sense Monet had loved passionately but I don’t remember a picture of Camille there. Someone just told me they had “Women in the Garden.” How could I not recall it? I recall the strong feeling that he was about to fall intensely in love.

KW: CLAUDE & CAMILLE is quite the delectable tearjerker — Camille is such a quicksilver, tragic muse of a character! What was the hardest part about writing about her? What did you find most compelling? Most difficult?

SC: Camille was the most difficult character in the book and the last to develop into a full, complex character. In an early version she was just a sweet young thing from a poverty background, but when I learned her background was upper-class it made a difference. When I was in my early 20’s I knew a few girls, one who kept lying because she wanted to appear fascinating and then didn’t know truth from fiction and a few (me too) who threw away good homes to live in poverty and wash diapers by hand, feeling we were among the genuine people. My editor kept coaxing Camille from me during the editorial stage and she just grew into something we both didn’t expect. Her terror of growing older, her secret letters to an unknown man…that sort of all came to flower (so to speak) towards the end of the writing process.

KW: One of the things I loved about CLAUDE & CAMILLE is the visceral sense of nineteenth century Paris you’ve evoked — the artists’ gatherings with their rough red wine, the scrounging for oil paint, the renting of model’s clothing, and so on. It’s all very La Bohéme. Can you describe your research process? How long did it take? Do you research before you begin to write?

SC: Research takes place before, during and then after in a way. You keep adding things. I love to find bits of daily life and stick them in. I guess I was researching the whole time. Various biographers had different opinions of the characters, and of Camille herself there was very little known at all. I worked with old photographs and paintings and many books. I walked the streets of Paris where Claude had walked and I went to Giverny. At one point in the book, I only had Claude young in the years before he had heard of Giverny (he did not rent that house until he was 43, after Camille dies); a close friend said, “You must go there to see what he became.” And I did and oddly…I felt so proud of him! I murmured under my breath, “Claude, see what you managed to achieve with your work!” I hope no one else heard me.

KW: Before you became a novelist you spent years as a singer and musician — I’m sure this must have been useful to you in your previous novel, MARRYING MOZART. For CLAUDE & CAMILLE, was your arts background helpful when it came to writing about visual artists? Or was it a challenge? Did you find yourself making certain assumptions about their artist process that turned out to be not as applicable as you first thought?

SC: I had grown up with art, with the smell of brushes and the shape of the easel against the window, but I had no gift to paint or draw. I have been fascinated all my life with changing light and shadow and perspective. Light across a field or above a river can send me into tears of joys, as can peeled stucco on an old Italian house. In the winter I watch as the stone drinks the light. So I had seen other painters and one day I went to hang out in the Art Students League where my mother had taught and listened to the conversations. I had a few painter friends read the book to make sure nothing was too off. I understood Claude’s compulsion. As to music, I had sung parts of Mimi and Musetta in La Bohéme and particularly the scene where Mimi loses her key and the young writer and seamstress fall in love in the shabby studio to some of the most glorious music ever written for lovers. I wanted to create that kind of unreasonable passionate love.

KW: Mozart and Monet are such iconic men — it’s hard to imagine them as anything but great artists influencing much of European culture. What similarities did you find writing about Claude Monet and Mozart? Differences?

SC: Oh goodness! Well, they were both very impractical about money; they wanted to live like lower nobility or at least, in Monet’s case, petite bourgeois. They both had compulsions. I think Mozart had more of a sense of humor and was used to presenting himself before kings dressed in gorgeous clothes since the age of six. Mozart’s father devoted himself to him and guided his son’s genius.  And in the 1770’s there were good jobs for musicians/composers. Every good church needed one; every nobleman or archbishop had his orchestra and wanted a new symphony for a wedding or something; they needed new operas like we need new movies (and books, one hopes!)  Monet’s father was against his becoming an artist and by then there were no guaranteed places or incomes for new artists. The photograph had come and all the churches were already painted the century before. And Paris was flooded with a thousand artists. There were very few patrons. Mozart had lots of rich patrons; it took Monet until his forties to find any.

Then of course Mozart was surrounded by the happy family of his wife, even though his father wished he had not married. At thirty he was making a fortune and surrounded  by those who loved him. At thirty Monet was near destitute and about to go into exile to London where thing would be worse.

KW: I’ll ask the same question that I asked Mary Sharrett last month: What advice would you give to writers working on novels (specifically historical fiction)? As the saying goes, hindsight is best sight: What do you wish you knew then that you know now?

SC: I wish I had known how hard it was! I mean, what diligence you need and what a challenge the actual business of writing can be. But I’d say if a writer wants to do this, what a joy it can be! Forming a  few characters, a place, a dish, warm weather, a hat, a quarrel maybe and there is something living on the page. And when someone else reads and loves your story, it is indescribable. I have not quite taken it in…and I can’t really, because each reader has their different ways and reasons for loving a story. It’s a shared intimacy.

KW: I’ve heard that your next book is a novel about the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. What inspired you to feature a female protagonist after several books featuring male historical figures? How has writing this book differ from writing CLAUDE & CAMILLE? And, finally, when can we expect to read it?

SC: I have wanted a female protagonist for a long time. I found it easier to write about men and maybe more fascinating, as I always like to know what makes each one tick! And in historical times when a woman is brilliant, so much of the book is about her defying the system to express herself.  Of course each book is different than another book, but in CLAUDE & CAMILLE, Camille can’t wait to defy her loving patents and live the life she wants; Elizabeth has a hard time even marrying because she does not want to displease her father or desert her family. And their moral standards! I am dealing with Victorians here where propriety is everything, not the Bohemian French world where they live as their hearts tell them.  When will the novel be expected? With good luck it will be in bookstores in two years. We’ll see!!

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Thank you, Stephanie, for an amazing interview! As I mentioned above, Stephanie has generously given us a copy of CLAUDE & CAMILLE to raffle off here. To win it, simply leave a comment by midnight, MAY 20, 2010.

The rules: Only one comment per person. However, to spice things up, for an extra entry tell me who is one of your favorite artists and why. He or she doesn’t have to be an Impressionist or nineteenth century artist. I’ll start off: Though it’s difficult to choose just one, one of my favorite artists is Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Why? Not because he’s such a great draftsman — his drawings are seriously wonky. Nor are many of his later paintings particularly tasteful (Bocca Baciata anyone?). But I can’t resist the over-the-top passion he brought to his paintings and drawings. I’m also enthralled with the stories associated with him and his Pre-Raphaelite cohort.

Small print: Book can only be shipped to U.S. or Canadian mailing address. Winner will be chosen at random and announced here May 21. Good luck to all!

• Filed under creativity, friends and colleagues, giveaways and raffles, interviews, the art world | 8 Responses

Creativity Friday: Inspiring a Novel*, part 2 ~ and book giveaway winner!

First off, congratulations to Jana! You’ve won the DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL book giveaway. I know you’ll enjoy this wonderful novel by Mary Sharratt — I adored it. I’ve contacted you by e-mail with instructions on how to claim it. If you don’t receive the e-mail, please leave me a comment on this post.

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It’s been about a month since my last The Novel update. Right now, I’m up to just past 90,000 words. That sounds like a lot, but only about 65,000 of them are “set”, meaning that they actually make sense within the context of the book; the other 25,000 are akin to loose sketches for scenes that may or may not end up included. To be honest, I’m not sure how The Novel may end — I ratchet back and forth between two endings, uncertain which fate feels more satisfying or appropriate for my heroine. It’s also become complicated since my characters have taken on a mind of their own. But, on a more definitive note, I finally have a title that I’m happy with which I’ll reveal in my next newsletter.

Previously I had written about two inspirations which have found their way into The Novel. The first was the paintings of John William Waterhouse— one character is based very loosely on Waterhouse and Whistler. My second inspiration post was about Schubert’s last string quintet, D. 956 which is performed during an important scene.

Here’s a third inspiration:

This drawing of the Lady of Shalott is a woodcut from the Moxon Tennyson, which featured the work of several prominent PreRaphaelite artists including Holman Hunt (above), Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and John Millais. The history of the Moxon Tennyson is an interesting one. Tennyson was reluctant to allow his poems to be published with illustrations. However, publisher Edward Moxon won the poet over by enlisting the talents of the PreRaphaelites for this uber-deluxe and expensive edition. He also arranged for the book’s illustrations to be prepared for publication by the Dalziel Brothers, perhaps the best engravers of their day.

Regardless, the book was a financial failure, though it’s now considered one of the most important illustrated books of the Victorian era. An English friend informed me that sometimes you can find illustrated pages from the Moxon Tennyson for sale in used book and print stores. He was kind enough to gift me with two of them, one which is of Rossetti’s version of the Lady of Shalott. I treasure them both.

Here’s my description of the Moxon Tennyson from The Novel:

I picked up the Moxon, opened to the Holman Hunt — a slice of paper fell out to indicate the illustration, annotated in pencil. “Note the supernatural elements,” he wrote.

The woodcut was a strange fey thing… Imagine, if you will, a tall woman standing as bent over as a Celtic tree, with huge piles of her dark hair floating above her, as if her tresses were held aloft by a hurricane force wind. Though she could be called beautiful, the gaze on her determined face was both intense and frightening. She stood inside a circle-shaped loom, which was set ankle-height — even I knew it was impractically close to the floor for any real weaver to use. The loom looked as though it had been transformed into a web, within which the Lady of Shalott was trapped like a fly.”

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* This is part of an ongoing occasional series of posts about inspiration for the two books I’m working on right now. The first is a novel set in Victorian England during the Aesthetics Movement. The second book is a follow up to DOOMED QUEENS.

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Round and about: a very utilitarian round up

For the past ten days, I’ve been sick in a very Victorian invalid sort of way. Meaning that if I had a fainting couch, I’d be lolling about on it (preferably in a velvet day gown while clutching a bottle of laudanum). I’ve even been without a voice for four days. The good news is that, while I don’t have access to nineteenth century opiates, I do have a prescription for antibiotics. I’m definitely on the mend.

So, as a means of playing catch up, here’s a round up of what’s been going on in Art and Words land.

1. Last Friday was the second gathering of the Creative Women’s Networking Salon at the studio-gallery. It was a resounding success — so much so that the Salon will now become a regularly scheduled monthly event, like our Tarot Salon. I’m thinking first or second Friday of each month.

At our last salon, I was joined by a wide variety of women photographers, editors, writers, bloggers, artists, and crafters — an amazing array of talent. After the event, I noticed that some of the women “friended” each other on Facebook and beyond. That made me very happy, since one of my goals with my studio-gallery is to foster creative community in my Brooklyn neighborhood of Ditmas Park.

2. The Paul Taylor Dance Company is now at City Center in Manhattan through mid-March. I’m fortunate to know Annmaria Mazzini, one of the intensely gifted dancers who perform in the company. (She’s also a talented jewelry designer — I have several of her magical pieces.)

Seeing Annmaria dance has become a special ritual for me, marking the end of winter and start of spring. This year was extraordinary because Thea was old enough to attend with us for the first time! Annmaria even gave Thea a tour backstage at City Center, which thrilled my daughter immensely.

Thea and Annmaria, still in costume from dancing the 1960’s-themed Changes.

Imagine being (almost) five years old and looking out at this vista. In the words of Thea, “really cool.”

3. One of the things I love most about Brooklyn is the community (see item #1 above). One of Thea’s friends is a little girl named Theodora, who lives around the corner from us. Theodora’s mom is Jenny Offill, the author of several books including the novel LAST THINGS, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Jenny has a short story in Electric Literature from which she will be doing a reading of on March 14 at 7pm at KGB Bar and Lit Review. More info here.

Another neighbor mother and friend is journalist Sharon Lerner. Her first book THE WAR ON MOMS is being published by Wiley next month. It’s battlefield reporting on the widespread realities facing most American women today: the lack of paid maternity leave, the dearth of decent part-time work options, and the shortage of good, affordable childcare options. It tells the truth that overworked, stressed-out American moms need to hear: that they’re not alone — and they’re not to blame. Read excerpts here.

4. Related reading news: We’ll be having author Mary Sharratt visit the gallery all the way from England on March 15 at 7pm to present and sign her new novel, DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL. I’m very excited — this is an exclusive for us, since the book won’t be released until early April.  DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL is garnering some extraordinary praise and received a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly. Learn more about this event.

5. I’ve decided to start offering semi-regular blog posts about my inspirations for The Novel, which is set amidst Victorian England’s deliciously decadent Aesthetic movement. For example, I wrote last month about my trip to Montreal to view the Waterhouse exhibit. The next one will go up later this week as part of my ongoing Creativity Friday series. It’s about my obsession with a Schubert string quintet. (Listen to it here.)

6. Finally, several people have yet to claim their prizes from our Valentine’s Week giveaways. Please send me your info so I can get your goodies on the way. (Or, if you e-mailed me and have yet to receive a prize, please send it to me again — your e-mail did not make it through.)

And with that, I hope you all are having a great week!

• Filed under The Novel, creativity, events, friends and colleagues, giveaways and raffles, news & muse, studio and gallery, the art world, the world around me | 2 Responses

The Most Romantic Week on the Blogosphere: The Most Inspiring Love Story Ever?

To finish my “Most Romantic Week on the Blogosphere” featuring the Love Tarot app, I am compelled to share with you what I consider to be possibly one of the most inspiring of love stories — the tale of Dante and Beatrice. On top of that, we’re giving away a copy of the Love Tarot app and one Amor and Beatrice print (autographed by me) to two lucky blog commentors. Details at the end of this post.

It’s not too late: You can still enter the giveaways from earlier in this week! Here’s what you can win:

Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland.
The Lover’s Path by Kris Waldherr.
The Queen of My Self by Donna Henes.
Goddess Tarot deck and MP3 of The Tarot School’s teleclass for The High Priestess from Ruth Ann Amberstone.

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“Why Dante and Beatrice?” you may wonder. After all Dante never got his girl. She didn’t love him in return. Heck, the poet hardly spoke to her, if we’re to believe what he wrote. Nor did he send her any notes or any other indications of his affection. The truth was that Beatrice Portinari never knew how much Dante Aligheri adored her when she died prematurely in her twenties. Dante’s infatuation with Beatrice was one which he nurtured with subtle stares during church services, cherished greetings during accidental meetings — and transcendental poems shared with everyone but the object of his affection.

Most people know that Dante lived in thirteenth century Florence and wrote The Divine Comedy, an epic poem describing his vision of a journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven. The first part, the Inferno, is the liveliest part of the work. Once you read it, it’s hard to forget its intensely visceral imagery and the sense that the poet is settling some serious political scores. Though Beatrice appears within The Divine Comedy as his guiding angel, she was also the subject of his first book, La Vita Nuova (“The New Life”). It is in La Vita Nuova that Dante fully recounts his love for her, and of how she inspired his art.

In a lot of ways, it’s easy to just consider Dante’s love for Beatrice a courtly love contrivance for his art — but what art! Here’s an excerpt from a poem he wrote about her death:

Great anguish do my sighs give unto me,
Whene’er my thought unto my heavy mind
Doth bring her to me who hath cleft my heart.
And thinking oftentimes concerning death,
There comes to me so sweet desire therefor
That it transmutes the color in my face.
When this imagination holds me fixed,
Such pain assaileth me on every side,
That then I tremble with the woe I feel;
And such I do become
That from the people shame takes me away:
Then, alone, weeping, I lamenting call
On Beatrice, and say: “Art thou, then, dead?
And while I call her I am comforted.”

When I think of all the art, poetry, literature, and (yes!) lovers who have been inspired by Dante, it amazes me. Everyone from Dante Gabriel Rossetti (though one has to pity poor Elizabeth Siddal, whom he plucked out of obscurity to be his Victorian-era Beatrice/Kate Moss) to, well, moi. Dante’s work has been illustrated by Sandro Botticelli, William Blake, and Gustave Dore. On the music front, Rossini and Schumann set his words to music, and it inspired a symphonic poem by Liszt. As for modern poets, Dantesque imagery found its way into the works of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, Gabriele D’Annunzio, and more writers than I can possibly list here.

All these influences and sources – and this is without even mentioning the films and novels and other art forms that owe Dante their due.

Why is the poet’s love story still so compelling, seven hundred years later? My theory is that Dante and Beatrice reminds us of the power of loving for love’s sake; of the beauty that pure devotion to another can inspire. And what can be more romantic than that?

So here’s the chain of events: Beatrice inspired Dante. Then Dante inspired everyone else. And that is why I consider Dante and Beatrice to be the most inspiring love story ever.

In closing, here’s my retelling of Dante’s devotion to Beatrice, adapted from The Lover’s Path Tarot; this account was based on his La Vita Nuova:

Beatrice was nine years old the first time Dante gazed upon her, he slightly older. Her presence made such an impression that he felt as though his spirit had been infused with light. From that moment, Dante adored Beatrice above all others. Through the years as they grew into adulthood, Dante sought to meet Beatrice, too overwhelmed with love to do nothing more than stare at her. He noticed that Beatrice was so full of grace that any who saw her experienced a happiness which could only be described through sighs. All this convinced Dante that Beatrice was truly an angel. Since he said nothing, Beatrice did not suspect Dante’s love; she thought him dumb with shyness. But her warm greeting never wavered no matter how awkwardly Dante acted.

When Beatrice turned fifteen, her parents arranged her marriage to a wealthy merchant. The first time Dante saw Beatrice after her wedding, she was accompanied by two of her bridesmaids as they walked along the Arno River in Florence. Overcome by the knowledge that she was now another’s wife, Dante turned his face from Beatrice to hide his tears. Beatrice’s bridesmaids misunderstood and thought the poet had insulted their mistress. They jeered at him as they led Beatrice away.

That night, Dante retreated to his chamber in anguished shame. While he slept, a vision appeared to him in his dreams as the stars reached the ninth hour of the night. From a cloud the hue of fire emerged a god-like figure. This being, who identified himself as Amor, the spirit of love, held a woman whom Dante recognized as Beatrice. Amor also held a heart, which he told  Dante was the heart the poet had irrevocably given to Beatrice.

Dante awoke from his dream resolved. His love for Beatrice would be no earthly passion to expire when they died. Instead, he would immortalize Beatrice with poems that would last forever. As their lives unfolded, Beatrice was honored by Dante’s verses as no woman had ever been. The poet’s fame spread—and with it, the story of his love for Beatrice.

Over the years, the story of Dante and Beatrice has inspired many to give their hearts just as completely.”

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TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: I have one copy of the Full version Love Tarot app and an autographed Amor and Beatrice print, which reproduces the drawing for the card shown above. To enter, simply leave a comment for this post; please indicate whether you’d like to be entered for the app or the print. Or both. For a double entry, tell us your about your most intensely romantic experience.

It may not involve another person — for example, I was enraptured during my first trip to Venice like a Victorian heroine overcome by Stendhal Syndrome. Or it might. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that romance is all around us — Valentine’s Day should be a celebration of that, rather than a marker (and marketing ploy) for happily we’re partnered off.

The small print: You have until midnight EST on February 14 to leave your comment. Winner will be chosen at random and announced on this blog Monday, February 15, 2010. Sorry, but this giveaway is limited to U.S. only.

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Top art: Dante and Beatrice from the Love Tarot app by Kris Waldherr.

More about the Love Tarot app: Considered to be the most romantic app in the App Store, the Love Tarot app offers gorgeous tarot readings inspired by famous love stories, such as Tristan and Isolde and Cupid and Psyche. This five star-rated app was recently relaunched to include a tarot journal for users to save their readings and other inspirations.

Available in Lite and Full versions, learn more here. Or download the Full version on iTunes now.

• Filed under giveaways and raffles, iPhone apps, lover's path, mythic living, tarot and oracles, the art world | 5 Responses

An A-Musing Journey

Forgive me the punning headline – I simple couldn’t resist. But this is the only way to describe my recent trip to Montreal to view the John Williams Waterhouse exhibit at Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal. As readers of my last blog entry know, I’ve been in need of serious muse time for my new books-under-way. So I took what Artist’s Way author Julia Cameron would call “an artist’s date”.

This was the first major exhibition of this late Pre-Raphaelite artist, as well as its only North American presentation. And a plot point in my new novel is oriented around the Lady of Shalott. And Montreal is one of my favorite cities. How could I resist?

So I took a weekend alone — my first away from my daughter since her birth — to travel up to Montreal in the dead of winter. Though I considered inviting a friend along, I decided that inspiration might strike more cleanly if I was traveling solo. To facilitate it, I even brought my laptop with me, so I could write during the eleven-plus hour train trip from New York. And I did.

I had forgotten that Waterhouse had created three versions of the Lady of Shalott. I was greeted by one of them as I walked past the museum gift shop.

And there was this behemoth draped over the entryway. Plus lots of displays inside. Alas, no photography allowed within the exhibit itself.

Inside the museum, all three versions were shown together for the first time, set within the centerpiece room of the exhibit. Nearby, Waterhouse’s personal copy of Tennyson’s poems was displayed. He’d drawn on every page, probably to record inspiration before it flitted away. Some of these intimate pencil sketches eventually were transformed into the magnificent paintings on view.

I was fortunately in time for the guided tour, which offered much that I did not know about Waterhouse. For example, he was the son of painters; his wife was also a flower painter. Alas, none of his journals or letters survived his death — the tour guide conjectured that his wife destroyed them — so not much is known about him.

Here’s more information, courtesy of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts:

In his search to rediscover the beauty of the medieval world, Waterhouse also found inspiration in classical literature and mythology. Often associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, who aimed to recapture the beauty and simplicity of the medieval world, Waterhouse was also a classical painter. The exhibition will show how Waterhouse’s paintings reflect his engagement with contemporary themes like medievalism, classical heritage, spiritualism and the femme fatale. Born the year the Pre-Raphaelites first exhibited at the Royal Academy, he inherited their taste for Alfred Tennyson, John Keats and William Shakespeare and was fascinated by beauty, the underworld and myths of enchantresses. His paintings reveal a romantic fascination for female passions: among his subjects are the Lady of Shalott, Cleopatra, Circe, Lamia, the Sirens tormenting Ulysses, and Mariamne condemned to death. Inspired by Romantic literature, he also drew from classical myth as interpreted by Homer and Ovid.”

With little else to go on, we’re forced to learn about Waterhouse through his art, rather than through his biography. (In a way, isn’t that the way it should be?) Once the tour was over, I spent several hours in the exhibit, going through it in detail. The overall impression I was left with was of a man who was passionate about mythology, beauty, and women. He was also fond of scattering numerous mystical symbols in his paintings. For example, he often used circles within overlapping circles; objects often number seven (as in seven crows or seven sirens). From this evidence, some believe that Waterhouse may have been involved with the popular spiritualist movement, one reason his wife may have destroyed his letters.

Alas, the exhibit closes this weekend. All the Ladies of Shalotts will depart back to their respective homes, probably never to meet again in one room — at least in my lifetime.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have had my encounter with them.

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On a somewhat unrelated note, it’s now February — and Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! With the help of my friend and publicity assistant Diane Saarinen, I’ve put together an amazing week of what I think is our most romantic content yet. Just call it the most romantic week on the blogosphere!

From February 8th through 12th, I’ll be joined on this blog by the beloved best-selling author Sandra Gulland (Mistress of the Sun), urban shaman Donna Henes (Queen of My Self), tarotist extraordinaire Ruth Ann Amberstone (The Secret Language of  Tarot), and acclaimed historian Holly Tucker (Wonders and Marvels, Blood Work) for a week of love-themed posts and special giveaways. The daily giveaways will include autographed romance-inspiring books, Amor art prints, and free downloads of the Love Tarot app. To be entered to win, all you have to do is comment. Easy-peasy.

Also on tap: A Valentine’s edition of our popular Tarot Salon. This takes place on February 12 starting at 7:30 pm at my studio-gallery; this month I’ll be joined by Donna Henes, Golda Poretsky, and Fran Dunston. For more information and to view other events and workshops, click here for our events page.

So I hope to see you here — and/or there!

• Filed under be-mused, creativity, giveaways and raffles, iPhone apps, lover's path, new projects, the art world, the world around me, travels | 6 Responses