A Rejection Letter or I got a big BUT

Good morning and Happy month of June to all of you,
    I am bummed out this morning.  In my email box this morning, I received a rejection letter for BLUE LAKE, my first novel.  And although I promise myself I wouldn't  let it get me down, these four paragraph blurbs on one's 100,000 word novels are difficult to swallow.
    She was very sweet.  She said she enjoyed reading it and was immediately pulled into the story.  She said my distinctive writing style effectively captures the sights and the sounds of the environment.  She said 'the romance between Nicole and Richard is very moving and something your readers will latch on to."
    BUT, and here is where my big BUT comes in, she doesn't feel it will fit into today's marketplace.  My writing is not sexually explicit, and when people see "romance", they think boy + girl = sex.  Is there no room out there for a touching story about the power of mutual love and commitment to each other?  Must it all be about lithe bodies quivering under his masterful touch?  Or succumbing to submission?  Fifty shades of something?
    My characters have sex.  But there are no physical play-by-play descriptions.  It's not the driving force of the novel.  The emotional side of love is what is laid bare here.  Just look around.  There is plenty of evidence out there that you all know how to do it.  But the intense, life changing power of loving someone unconditionally and the all-encompassing desire to be together and stay together, coupled with the ultimate heartbreaking choice of having to step away from the love of your life for his own good, is there no room for this kind of story in our society today?
    No, it wasn't my first rejection letter.  It was my second.  The other agent said BLUE LAKE was something you'd expect to find on Mary Poppin's bedside table.
    So, at least the quality of my rejection letters is improving.
    Thank you for allowing me to publicly rant and wallow and cry.  I'm all better now.
                                                                                                     Hugs,
                                                                                                     Carol

IT'S ALL ABOUT PAINTING

                                       
                                         "NIGHT MUSIC"  by Parker Kaufman

Famous quotes about painting.


"A good painting to me, has always been like a friend.  It keeps me company, comforts, and inspires."
---Hedy Lamarr

"Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do."
---Edgar Degas

"Painting is a blind man's profession.  He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he sees."
---Pablo Picasso

"Painting is a faith,and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion."
---Vincent van Gogh

"When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower.  If it clashes, it is not art."
---Paul Cezanne

"I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own."
---Jackson Pollock

"Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture."
---Michelangelo

"No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition."
---Claude Monet

"Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see."
---Philip Guston

"I dream a lot.  I do more painting when I am not painting.  It's in the subconscious."
---Andrew Wyeth

"I was not out to paint beautiful pictures, even painting good pictures was not important to me.  I wanted only to help the truth burst forth."
---Alice Miller





 

Author Interview with Cianna Reider

Author Interview with Cianna Reider

from Colorado Springs, Colorado

What have you written?

     I have written a collection of poetry, a few short stories, and a screenplay.

What is your favorite genre to write?

     No particular genre, but I like to write as realistically as possible.

How old were you when you started writing?

     About ten, I guess.

Where do you get your inspiration?

    From movies, music, poems, other books, art.

What is your favorite food?

     Meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and sloppy joes

Where would you like to visit?

     Scotland, England, Paris

What do you do when you get writer’s block?

     I just step away, focus on some other things, and let the poem or story have some time to settle.  And usually when I come back, I can move on.

Who is your favorite author?

     I don’t have a favorite author.  I love many authors, each different for good for different reasons and different points in life.

Best book you ever read.

     That’s too tough a question!  I love reading and have read so many books that I can’t pick a favorite.

Try.

     Okay.  I have read both The Hobbit and Phantom of the Opera over a dozen times, so I’d say they were up there.  

Favorite musical artist.

     I listen to a wide variety of music, depending on my mood.

Who is the one who has influenced your personal life the most and why?

     There’s not one person who has overall influenced me, I’ve been lucky that my life has been filled with amazing role models in order to counteract the crazy ones I have as well.  I have built a wonderful family of people who constantly influence me.                   

If you could sit down and have a conversation with ONE person, living or dead, real or fictional, who would it be and why?

     I think it would be Queen Elizabeth I, she really had her head on straight in a time full of silly thinkers and strange ideas, and a time when women weren’t considered equal, she ruled a country.

Who advice would you give someone who aspired to be an author?

     Just write.  And read a lot.  It is very hard to get published these days.  And just because you’re not published by a publishing company, it doesn’t mean you’re not a writer.  Self-publish.

Excerpt from BLUE LAKE

The house was quiet.  Nicole was quiet.  Richard was heartbroken.  He couldn’t make eye contact with her without welling up.  Every time he would try to talk to Nicole, she would just back away from him.  He waited patiently for an opportunity to corner her.  It came—in the shower.  He, fully clothed, jumped in with her, blocking the shower door turning the water off. 

     “Richard, let me out, please.”

     “You won’t listen to me out there.  Maybe you will give me a chance to talk to you in here.  A chance, Nicole.  That’s all I am asking for.  Just a chance. ”

     “Okay, fine, talk.” She leaned back, slid down the shower wall, and sat on the floor.

     “I love you.  I know you love me.  We are great together.  Please, tell me WHY you feel I am so unsuitable for you.  Just tell me why and I’ll leave you alone.”  

     He sat on the wet shower floor across from her, looking broken hearted.

    “Richard, you don’t understand.”  

    “Make me understand, Nicole, use little words.  Tell me.  Don’t spare my feelings. I’m already miserable.  Out with it!”   

     “It’s not that I don’t want to marry you.  I love you.”  She touched his face.  He grabbed her hand.  He kissed the palm of her hand and held on to it tightly.

     “You are handsome, charming, and sweet.  You are a fantastic lover.   You are a genuinely good man.  You touch my very soul.  I couldn’t ask for more.”

      “But…” 

Episode Thirty-One Double-O-Reynolds

Episode Thirty-One   Double-O-Reynolds 

     “I know where there’s a doorway back to Earth in Galtari.”

     “Do you have anyone in Galtari?  A family, a cat… a woman?”

     “No.  No other woman. No family.  High Council likes their five-star tracker to be a loner.  I have no strong attachment to Galtari.  I would much rather be on Earth… with you.”

     “Is that why the brilliant, keen-sensed, best Galt tracker on the planet allowed himself to be captured by my father’s bumbling troupe of half-witted vaudeville cops?”

     “How else was I going to get in here to you?” he sighed.  “I couldn’t just knock on the front door and ask if I could come in and see you, now could I?”

     “Oh, Jaks!”  She covered her face with her hands and started to cry.  He hugged her.

     “Don’t cry, My Love.  Please don’t cry.  I screwed up?”

     “Yes, Sweetie.  Big time.  And I don’t know how I’m going to get us out of here.”

     “I couldn’t help myself.  I had to be with you.  But, Sam, there’s more I have to tell you.”

     “That you were in on the kidnapping at the drugstore?  Oh, I know that.”

     “What?  How could you possibly know that?” he asked.

     “Well, you insisted that I come with you when I really didn’t want to.  You’ve never pressured me to do anything I didn’t want to do before.  Ever.  You said you were tied up, too, yet there were no rope marks on your wrists.  I had them.  And there was only one pillowcase on the van floor.  Remember, I had to crawl around on that floor looking for my shoes.  And we were going to the store to pick up allergy medicine when you never had any signs of an allergy.” 

     “I’m sorry, Baby, it was the price I had to pay for Dr. Reynolds co-operation.  He told me to sniffle and say I had a headache.  But I was so happy to be with you, I forgot I was suppose to pretend to be sick.”

     “So our doctor’s not really a doctor?”

     “Well, yes, he is, and he’s a very good one.  But he’s also a part-time agent for the CIA.”

     “Our medical doctor is a secret agent?  Like 007?  Double-O-Reynolds!  How cool is that?  The CIA has part-time agents?  Wow!  They really DID cut back.  Nobody believed them.  Wait, so who’s side is Werner on?”

     “The other side.  But they needed someone to decode a message and encode an answer.”

     “The agency doesn’t employ their own decoders?”

     “Yes, but Werner didn’t trust them, and this particular code was considered impenetrable.”

     “You couldn’t just ASK me to do it?  I would’ve done it!  I LOVE a good puzzle.  Why all the cloak and dagger?  And didn’t they smack you around?  Your cheek was bruised and your lip was bleeding!”

     “Werner told Doc Reynolds they would allow us to stay together in the same room.  When they separated us, I panicked.  I was afraid they were going to hurt you, so I fought back, to be with you, to protect you.  And they…”

     “Do they make a habit of stealing office help from small trucking companies to get the secret decoding jobs done?”

     “No, actually it was your co-workers’ conversation at The Bleak Horizon that put the idea into Werner’s head to grab you.  And one of his men got close enough to you that night to brush up against you and stick a tracking device on your jacket.  When I saw him get that close to you, I knew I’d better hurry up and get you out of there.”

     “Oh, Jaks!  My head is swimming.  No more for now.  I need a nap.”

INSPIRED BY MOVIES

                                                    "UNTITLED"  by Parker Kaufman


As I child I was continually fascinated with the possibility of worlds other than the one I lived in.  The thought that there could be far more advanced beings somewhere beyond space was equally appealling.

My imagination was fueled by television shows of the 60's like "The Outer Limits", "Lost In Space", and "Star Trek".  And when the "Star Wars" movies hit the big screen, I was completely taken by what I saw.

It has been a dream of mine, still is, to live aboard a starship and explore the universe.  The unknown in the universe is food for my art.

The composition above is from a recent series of 3 untitled works.  A combination of cardstock, computer images, and Prisma-color pencils makes up this piece.  It measures 12 x 12 inches.  The two companion pieces can be viewed on my website  www.parkerkaufman.net.

AND THE WINNER IS......

CONGRATULATIONS!!!  Cianna Reider, you are the lucky winner of the Vision & Verse artcard give-a-way!!   Contact us at artstory2013@att.net with your delivery info.  And thank you for being one of our loyal readers.
                                    Cheers,
                                    Parker

THE ART OF ALBUM COVERS

Record albums....remember,  those 12 inch grooved vinyl discs that stored music; those coveted plastic circles of musical memories we collected and protected as if they were gold?

Albums were packaged in protective cardboard sleeves, and these "covers" as they came to be known, were as exciting and memorable as the music inside.

Covers became an instant marketing tool for record companies and the art that graced them caught the eye and spoke volumes about the music and the musicians.

Many extremely talented illustrators and photographers used their skills to create some of the most stunning album covers ever seen.  Iconic photograpers Mick Rock and Norman Seeff left their mark with covers for rock legends "Queen" and "Lou Reed".  Renowned graphic artists and illustrators like Ed Repka, Andy Warhol, Matt Klarwein, & Rex Ray, beautifully designed covers for "The Velvet Underground", "Santana", "David Bowie", and "The Rolling Stones".  Still other record sleeves contained the images licensed by the public domain, from artists long deceased.  Norman Rockwell's  "cowboy" was used on an ablum by "Pure Prairie League".   An adaptation of a mural by painter, John Stewart Curry, decorated the front of the debut album for the rock group "Kansas".

With the current popularity of music downloads, the album cover is experiencing an evolution.  Although it will continue to play a role in the packaging of new music, it is most decidedly changing.

A 2013 documentary, "The Cover Story, Album Art", by Eric Christensen, captured the essence of this fading art form.

Featured here are a few of my favorite albums and covers.  From top left to right,  Cream, David Bowie, Yes, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed.

Dan Brown

Dan Brown


    One of my favorite authors is the
delightful Dan Brown, not only an author, but a pop-culture sensation.  We all know his Robert Langdon series, DAVINCI CODE and ANGELS AND DEMONS, and his brand new one INFERNO.   And I love those, but he's written a few others older ones that are even better, in my opinion.  One is  DECEPTION POINT.  Here is my review of DECEPTION POINT on Goodreads.

"Fantastic!  I loved it.  The discovery of an ancient object found in the polar ice sets the entire scientific community on a mission to discover it's interplanetary origin.  Add NASA to the mix, and you have a taut thriller with conspiracy and intrigue.  This was a typical 'Dan Brown-cant-put-it-down Book'."
My rating:  5 stars

Some Dan Brown Info

Dan Brown, Author

Dan Brown is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for the 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. Wikipedia

Born: June 22, 1964 (age 48), Exeter, NH     Spouse: Blythe Brown (m. 1997)     Movies: Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, More     Awards: Book Sense Book of the Year Award for Adult Fiction     Education: Phillips Exeter Academy, Amherst College, University of Seville

Book Review of THE BASLICATO

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The Baslicato (Time After Time #3)

by Carol Ann Kauffman

5.0 of 5 stars 5.00  ·  rating details  ·  1 rating  ·  1 review

The third book in the Time After Time series is a fast one! When Dr. Brook Wilson agreed to take on celebrity Italian race car driver, Jason Maxwell, known as ‘The Baslicato,’ as her head injury patient, little did she realize that her relationship with him would turn her calm, pleasant, productive, well-ordered life upside down. All her conscience efforts to get exactly where she wanted to be in her life would be tossed up in the air, including her longtime boyfriend Dr. Garrett MacEgan, Chief of Staff of Vistaverde’s West Memorial Hospital. She would find herself living in another country, remembering a past life and a passed love, and running from danger at every turn. Beautiful, romantic southerm Italy, fast cars,big explosions, and crazy exes; this story is murder!

(Taken from Goodreads.)

TECHNIQUE

                                                         "DANCER"  by Parker Kaufman

Think about your last visit to an art museum.  Remember wondering as to how the artist achieved a particular look or feeling in a paining?  Here is a small assemblage of techniques artists employ in their masterpieces.

Sfumato:  From the Italian word for "smoke", a technique of painting in thin glazes to achieve a hazy, cloudy atmosphere, often to represent objects or landscape meant to be perceived as distant from the picture plane.

Frottage:  A technique of reproducing a texture or relief design by laying paper over it and rubbing it with some drawing medium, such as pencil or crayon.  Some artists incorporated these rubbings into their paintings by means of collage.

Gouache:  The technique of applying opaque watercolor to paper.  The ususal gouache painting displays a light-reflecting brilliance quite different from the luminosity of transparent watercolors.

Impasto:   Paint is applied in outstanding heavy layers or strokes, creating a thickness or roughness of paint, as opposed to a flat, smooth surface.

Repoussoir:  From the French verb meaning to push back.  A means of achieving perspective or spatial contrasts by the use of illunsionistic devices such as the placement of a large figure or object in the immediate foreground of a painting to increase the liiusion of depth in the rest of the picture.

Chiaroscuro:  In drawing, painting, and the graphic arts, this technique concerns the rendering of forms through a balanced contrast between light and dark areas.  It is effective in creating the illusion of depth and space around the principal figures in a composition.  Leonardo da Vinci was a painter who excelled in this technique.

Aquatint:   A painting technique for producing unlimited tonal gradations to re-create the broad flat tints of ink wash or watercolor drawings.  This is achieved by etching microscopic cracks and pits into the image on a master plate, typically made of copper or zinc.  Spanish artist Goya employed this technique.

Foreshortening:  This means to diminish certain dimensions of an object or figure in order to depict it in correct spatial relationship.  For example, a figure's arm outstretched toward the observer must be foreshorened- the dimensions of lines, contuours, and angles adjusted- in order that it not appear hugely out of proportion to the rest of the figure.  Foreshortening is applied to the depiction of a single object or figure, whereas the term persepctive applies to the depiction of an entire scene.

Now armed with some new terminology, your next museum visit will bring you another perspective to what you see.