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TheMesaTribune.com |
THE MESA TRIBUNE | DECEMBER 19, 2021
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Mesa woman's work is part of show celebrating quilt stories BY SRIANTHI PERERA Tribune Contributor
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inda McCurry’s art quilt depicts adversity. Years ago, her Gilbert home caught fire around the chimney; the fire burnt downstairs near the fireplace and upstairs through the master bedroom. Her koi fish died in her pond due to firefighters putting a flame retardant in it. In flaming red, orange, brown and yellow, she traces the story in her quilt titled “From the Ashes.” “There was a lot of restoration to do,” McCurry said. “You could say from the ashes we rose and came back as strong as we could.” Stories such as this are what exhibit curator and judge Ellen M. Blalock sought when she was invited to assemble the City of Chandler’s annual art quilt show. Art Quilts XXVI: Stitching Stories, featuring 64 story quilts made by 53 artists from across the country, runs through Jan. 8 at Vision Gallery and CCA Gallery. A resident of Syracuse, New York, Blalock is passionate
about story quilts. “I know that quilters work and artists work in all kinds of different ways and I wanted to be inclusive of a lot of people’s voices because not everybody does figurative work,” she noted. “What is also important to me is the story behind the quilt and not just a story the quilt is telling. Somebody may be having the story of why they made the quilt and or it could even be the process,” she added. Blalock herself is a narrative artist documentarian who works in photography, video, drawing and fiber. Most of her creations come in series form, such as the 32-piece Family Quilt Project; Not Crazy, which looks at mental illness in the African American community; and the one on feminism. In addition to creating picturesque fabric art, Chandler artist-novelist Laurie Fagen often portrays causes important to her. For this show, Fagen chose to highlight a photograph her brother, a nurse practi-
see QUILTS page 15
In her story quilt titled “Seeking Center/Finding Balance,” Shelly White creates a visual snapshot of her goal of “calm” as she navigates competing concerns, an overload of information and confusion. The layered colors of nature, repetitive patterns and topographic lines help chart a path to peace, order, and beauty,” she said. (Courtesy of Shelly White.)
At 97, author pens novel on an opera icon BY SRIANTHI PERERA Tribune Contributor
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any biographies have been written about Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, but none read like a thriller. Sun Lakes playwright, teacher and novelist Mel Weiser’s “Viva Puccini,” a new historical biography in novel form, fills in the gap. Weiser captures the essence of the composer’s life: adversity, love, tragedy, death and sexual conquest – qualities found in the great master’s operas – and weaves a compelling tale. “There is anger in it, there is some mystery, there is a tremendous conflict in it,” said Weiser, who at 97 has four other published books and nine produced stage plays to his credit. “There is excitement in terms of how
the mystery is revealed or the mysteries of his life are revealed and how, ultimately, they lead to the inevitable conclusion, his death.” Why Puccini? It seems that Puccini chose Weiser as much as Weiser chose him. Years ago, Weiser read a book on the composer and was so fascinated by him that he scribbled notes on the margins. “One day, I was sitting in the bedroom where the bookshelves were and across the room from them – this is almost mystical – I’m looking at the bookshelf, and one book from all those books in the shelf, for no reason that I can understand, seemed to jump out at me,” he said. “I kept staring at it and – I couldn’t read the title of it or anything – so I got out of my chair and I walked over and pulled this book out and it was the Puccini book.” Weiser leafed through it, read his own
comments and said to himself: “There’s a book in this.” To research Puccini’s remarkable life further, Weiser bought and read eight different biographies about him. He browsed online for more tidbits. He listened to his popular operas – “La Boheme,” “Tosca,” “Madame Butterfly” and “Turandot” – and cultivated a deep understanding and appreciation of them. He read analysis of the compositions. Then, he began writing the novel. “I had great fun writing about Puccini,” Weiser said. While a biography has to be factual, a novel gets more latitude, he noted. “One sticks to the facts of his life but one embroiders those with imagination,” Weiser explained. “For example, if in a biography it says that he spent a lot of time trying to find time to write his music, that’s very vague.”
Sun Lakes author Mel Weiser has published a page-turner on Italian composer Puccini. (Courtesy of Mel Weiser)
“The writer of a novel has considerable latitude and I use that latitude to create situations to indicate how he didn’t have
see AUTHOR page 16
