You could win this Kindle Box Set! It’s easy!

Since most readers don’t bother to comment or leave a reply, your chances of winning my Book Blast giveaway are much higher than winning most other contests. See the end of this post to find the easy way to enter. I’d love to hear from you.

I’ve been intrigued by the painting American Gothic by Grant Wood since 1963 when Country Corn Flakes used a couple of American Gothic lookalikes in this commercial. Since then the painting of the farmer with his pitchfork and stern daughter has become one of the most parodied paintings in the world. There’s something magic about this painting, partly because it has become such an American icon.

While my husband and I lived in New Zealand, we found this parody of the painting at the top the gondola ride that climbs Bob’s Peak in Queenstown. Not painted but formed entirely from a wide selection of Jelly Belly jelly beans.

In one form or another, American Gothic has been copied a bazillion times. We chose to make that a bazillion and one.  When we moved to Iowa for retirement, we found ourselves living about an hour and a half from the real house Grant Wood duplicated in American Gothic. Last year, we just had to drive to Eldon, Iowa to see it. We borrowed costumes from the nearby gift store and planted our feet in front of the simple white house with the fancy Gothic window. This is our best imitation of the painting.

Fun, fun, fun! I even bought a coffee mug with a copy of the famous painting on it. Plus, a copy of the painting which now hangs on the wall beside our family version of it.

My real journey into my fictional art world

Déjà Who?, the second book in my Art Spotlight Series, is all about real vs. fake art. Forgeries and illusions form the art backbone of the plot. I needed a real image in my head so I could paint word pictures of them in the mind of my reader. You can find digital images of these paintings on this Pinterest board.

My Pins include:

• Real paintings mentioned in the book
• Art humor related to the book
• Optical illusions and Lego reproductions of famous art mentioned in the book
• But not In the Garden by Helen M. Brady. (Since it is entirely fictional, I am not a great artist, and there is no way I could reproduce the painting, I leave the reader to imagine it.)

As a twenty-first century author, my first glimpses, usually my only glimpses of this art in the book, I found online.  My foray through the art world and forgery, the art issue of this book, stretched my knowledge and fascinated me. I realized that sometimes it is a very thin line that separates fact from fiction and real from fake.

Fakes, Fiction, Forgery

To paint American Gothic, Grant Wood used this now-famous house to tell a story of Midwestern resilience and enduring values. The house was real. So was the resilience he saw during the depression. But the farmer and his daughter in the painting were not farmers, but models who met for the first time 12 years after the painting was finished. I like to think of the painting as a work of fiction that is true to life during the depression.

As I wrote my Art Spotlight Mysteries, I wanted to enter the world of my fictional characters. Know things they knew. Feel some of what they felt. Writing Déjà Who? took me into the fascinating world of forgery. Some experts believe that perhaps 20% of paintings in major museums may not be fully authentic or correctly attributed. An art lover will find that disturbing. Personally, I find it reassuring to know that, due to many technical details of the production of the piece, American Gothic’s authenticity has never been seriously questioned.

But let’s say you go to the Art Institute of Chicago and see the real American Gothic. You study the painting and search for meaning to it. Because it’s so famous, you feel honored just to stand before it. But what if you found out that the painting on the museum’s wall was actually a forgery? Would you feel cheated?

Absolutely!

Why?

Because when you or I go to a major art museum, we want to see the real deal. The original. Painted by Grant Wood before he was famous. You can buy prints of it in many places. But the genuine American Gothic, is one of the most famous paintings of the 20^th century and a copy can’t take the place of that!

So, while prints can be nice, originals far outshine them. All the parodies and prints are just a reflection of the worth of the original. Even though I’ve studied a copy of the painting many times, I still want to travel to Chicago one day and see the real one!

I wanna be real!

Many people resent those who watch them too closely, but as I see it, with all of the spiritual advantages God has given me, my life should be worth watching. Thankfully, I don’t think most people expect Christians to be perfect, but they do expect us to have integrity. They expect us to be real. So this is what I’ve learned to pray.

Lord, help me to grow more and more like you. When I fall, and I will, inspire me to own my sin, change my ways, and become a genuine imitator of you.

Q: Have you ever noticed anyone imitating you? How does that make you feel?

Q: Who has been a role model for you sometime in your life? In what way would you like to be like that person?

Don’t forget the giveaway! I will give the entire Kindle Art Spotlight Box Set to a person chosen at random from all those who answer one of these questions or comment on this post. It’s so easy to go into the draw and your chances of winning are much higher than most giveaways!

Real or fake? Jordan must decide so he can defend his integrity in a confusing world of art.
This box set contains the entire series of the Art Spotlight Mysteries.
Book 1 – Broken Windows: Running away to Boise makes sense until a shadow from the past commits weird crimes to destroy Jordan’s credibility in the art community.
Book 2 – Déjà Who?: Jordan never dreamed an innocent promise could cost him his career, but new accusations pull him into the past forcing him to ask, “Who am I?” all over again.
Book 3 – I Scream: A child’s simple painting enters the world of contemporary art, challenging Jordan to re-examine his principles and to market art he can’t understand.