Last week artist Barbara Kostal and
I had a book launch party for our co-authored book, Wisdom of the Heart.
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| Book cover |
It was a fabulous party. Everyone loved the
book, marveled over its coffee-table-book size, admired the paintings that
Barbara had on easels around the room, and enjoyed my readings.
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| I am reading from the book, far left. Barbara Kostal is at lower right. |
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| I am apparently reading something ecstatic from one of the essays. |
This party was the culmination of more
than three years of collaborative work, which started in September 2013, when I was guest
speaker for the Applegate Trails Association's first annual fundraiser. Barbara,
whom I didn't know, approached me there, introduced herself as an Applegate
artist, and said that she had been working on a series of paintings called Wisdom
of the Heart and that her vision
was to publish a book of those paintings, with essays. She said she knew
me through my commentaries on Jefferson Public Radio. Would I be interested in collaborating
on the project and writing the essays?
I was
immediately interested and even more so when I visited her in her studio, with
its lovely views of meadows and mountains, and saw the paintings. What I wanted
to do, I told Barbara, was not to interpret the paintings but respond to them.
Essays and paintings would be two interrelated pieces, one in words, one in
paint. Barbara agreed, and so we began.
We
quickly developed a process. Barbara would bring a painting to my house on the
mountain and hang it carefully on the wall. We would have lunch, talk, discuss
the book, take a walk. I would live with the painting for several weeks or a
month or more, meditating on it, watching it in different lights, letting its
essence speak to me. Then I started writing. When the piece was finished, I called
Barbara. She would come over with a new painting; I would read the essay to
her; we would have lunch, talk and laugh, discuss the book, take a walk. Then,
with a new painting on the wall, the process began again.
Not the
least part of this project for me was to have a revolving exhibition of
Barbara's art in my house. Perhaps the best part was the deep friendship that
developed between Barbara and me.
The
production process was arduous, but thanks to the patronage of Barbara's
husband, David Calahan, the published book is in hand. It is a beautiful book.
Barbara and I thought so when we got our authors' copies, several weeks ago,
and the response at the book launch and afterward has corroborated our own,
admittedly biased, opinion.
Barbara
thinks of the book as having healing power. If art and words have healing
power, then perhaps so. I think of the book as bringing pleasure to readers and
maybe a little bit of encouragement to see the beauty in the world around us –
in the people we know, the experiences we have, and the natural world that is a
part of ourselves. The book launch was the start of what I hope will be a long
journey for Wisdom of the Heart as
its images and words bring to other people a hint of the pleasure and beauty
Barbara and I find in life.
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| Me with Barbara Kostal and her parents at the book signing table |
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