That Secret Ingredient In Creating A Story

You know, writing and drawing are deeply personal acts. When you were a kid making that arts and craft assignment (remember that horrible plate made of watered mushy paper? Or the first lopsided glaced mug?), didn't you add a bit of uniqueness to it to make your own? It could be some initials hidden in the picture, a small piece of glass embedded in the clay, or for me, a three legged turtle vase (don't ask). It was yours because you envisioned it, took it from within and made it real--with words, or paint, or pieces of wood--and when you received an A or some compliment from teacher and friends, do you remember the bloom of pride over your creation?

Some of us grew up to be writers and painters (and craftsmen). We enjoy the act of creation, of bringing our imagination to live and sharing it with others. There is a kind of magic we perform, each of us leaving a piece of souls in our art. And yes, there are secrets in each one of our creation, some of which we keep even from our selves. We have our different ways of blending paint and words, of mixing ingredients, even though it might use the same basic recipe, of adding that touch that make what we're creating uniquely ours.

Then...there are those who love to strip us of our secrets. Take, for example, the famous painting, Mona Lisa.

Immediately, the smile comes to mind, yes? It's that da Vinci magic touch. That smile and its owner have haunted many for centuries. Books have been written about her. Is it important to discover her identity? Would that reveal the magic of that smile da Vinci captured?

Recently, Mona Lisa's identity has been confirmed by the academics in Heidelberg University. She was a young lady named Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo. From that one starting point, suddenly we know details about that Mona Lisa in the painting.

No, she wasn't a secret lover.

No, she wasn't a prostitute.

Nope, not the face of da Vinci's muse.

She was the wife of a silk merchant. She married him at sixteen. The fabric of imagination ripped just like that.

We suddenly have so many details. Her husband was fourteen years older, which made him thirty. They were da Vinci's neighbor. She had five children (we even had a list of all the names) and she died at 63.

And part of me is resentful that the magic has been stripped. When I first visited the Louvre so many decades ago, my first destination was Mona Lisa. I've always been drawn to her when I looked at paintings of portraits. Perhaps it was because she was mysterious. Nameless. A woman da Vinci had left some of his magic.

I remember the first reaction. The throng trying to get closer to the picture. The shock of the how small that painting was. The details. And yes, my eyes were drawn to that smile, just like in the painting. To me, she symbolized what an artist could do with words and paint. Look at me, she said. I'm not another painted head. I have a story only my creator can tell. And you'd better come closer and pay attention.

Today, I know more about her than my neighbor's life. It doesn't change the beauty of the painting, I know that, but inside, my lips curl down like a pouting child. The creator in me is throwing a tantrum for da Vinci.

I use a lot of emotional magic in my creation. I would not have liked those elements identified and labled. I might admit a few details here and there to my readers--walking through a red-light district and watching children propositioning men and my feelings about that; the frustration with working against redtape; the childhood myths that my mother told me that became a character's internal foundation; the essense of the male jokes bantered around in the real job. And even that have to be pried from me.

Edited to add: And now they are going to use a digital scanner to figure out how da Vinci applied his paint. There is a "misty" look in the Mona Lisa that was part of the da Vinci secret magic. Using the scanner, they have found no brushstrokes or even da Vinci's fingerprints present on the canvas.

Decoding Mona Lisa

I'm hoping they fail. I don't want them to find all of Mona Lisa's secrets.

Let the creation tell its own story. You don't have to know everything.

Do you?

;-)

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