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PRIME Editor SPRINGFIELD Author, editor and Western Massachusetts resident Pamela Thompson will discuss how Edwin Elmer's 1890 painting, "Mourning Picture," inspired her debut novel, "Every Past Thing," during the Jan. 31 Museum la Carte presentation at the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts. The talk, titled "Shall I Make You, World, Again?", will take place from noon to 1 p.m. at the museum, which is located at 21 Edwards St. The cost to attend the event is $2 for museum members, $4 for non-members; full museum admission will be required for individuals wishing to tour the galleries following the talk. Attendees are encouraged to bring their lunch. Cookies and beverages will be provided. "I take the title of the talk -- 'Shall I Make You, World, Again?' -- from Adrienne Rich's poem, "Mourning Picture," which is about the same painting," Thompson told Reminder Publications in an e-mail. "I want [attendees] to think about artists' and writers' intentions .what it is to make a world -- or a scene . by talking about Elmer and his 'Mourning Picture' and my experience writing 'Every Past Thing.'" "Every Past Thing" is a fictionalized account of the lives of Ashfield-born painter Edwin Elmer and his wife, Mary, during one week of the couple's extended visit to New York City in the fall and winter of 1899. Thompson's Web site synopsizes the work as "an intimate novel of a marriage, the loss of a child, a growing political consciousness and the heart's secrets," focused primarily through the lens of middle-age Mary's grief and longings. From art to inspiration Thompson said she first encountered Elmer's painting at the Smith College Art Museum while taking an art history class at UMass Amherst, and "was struck by its emotional power, its vivid colors, its strange shadows [and its] arresting presence." She said the painting "seemed to have in it all sorts of interesting stories -- about the making of art, about love, about grief, about the country and the city -- that were all interesting and urgent questions to me, as I'd recently moved out to the hilltowns myself and embarked on the exhilarating and terrifying ride of parenthood." To better understand the world of Edwin and Mary, Thompson said that for years she didn't read "anything written after 1900, because I wanted to have the language of the day in me." She also did extensive research into the lives of Edwin Elmer, Mary and other family members, read a variety of historical works on both New York at the turn of the 19th century as well as the hilltowns and Pioneer Valley, and researched the war in the Phillipines and the aftermath of the Civil War. From concept to completion, she said the novel took 15 years, with the actual writing consuming a total of three years. |
