Arlene L. Mandell
The Eleventh Muse
"When we look into the mirror we see the mask. What is hidden behind the mask?" – Diane Mariechild
Nine years ago, my husband and I prepared to move cross-country from frigid northern New Jersey to sunny northern California. We sold and donated hundreds of possessions – books, couches, lamps, snow shovels. One corner of our basement was filled with art supplies, including desiccated oil paints, pastels, and a dusty wooden easel. In our two-story house, there never seemed to be sufficient time or a suitable space for making art. I planned to sell the easel, but something said "Take it!"
As we settled into our ranch-style house in Santa Rosa, California, I piled everything I deemed artistic – oils, acrylics, colored pencils and the heavy wooden easel – in a six- by-eight- foot alcove, but the space was too small to use. When I opened the easel, I had to stand in the adjoining office where I came to write every morning. Poems, essays, short stories, I did it all. I even wrote a mediocre novel. Understandably, no one wanted to publish it. Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, murmured sympathetically.
Once again the easel collected dust. During that first rainy Sonoma County winter (yes, there was quite a dramatic rainy season), I took a workshop called Art Media for Self-Expression, where I played with oil pastels, tempera paints, and tissue paper, trying to free my artistic spirit. When the course ended, I had a papier mache cast of my left hand and a spirit house decorated with beads and feathers to invite the muse. Then I stopped making art. No place, no space, I told myself, but that wasn’t exactly true.
Under our bedroom was an unfinished cinder block room with solid wood double doors. Outside, a landscape of weeds and overgrown rose bushes. We hired a contractor who installed glass doors, wallboard and a tile floor. We brought in a discarded kitchen table. Presto, a studio! Almost.
The easel stood ready, but something was still missing – inspiration. Under the spirit house with its bright feathers, I pinned a copy of Anais Nin’s quote on creativity, "And the time came when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” I would spin in my chair, waiting to be overtaken by a risky artistic impulse.
Then, during an Open Studios art tour in Bodega Bay, I found Gradiva, the eleventh muse, depicted in a ceramic mask nailed to a weathered board. I hung her on the side of the doorframe. Gradiva, who has a rather unusual reputation as "the woman who walks through walls," was said to have inspired Surrealist painters.
An indefinable something shifted, and soon my work table filled to overflowing. Now my easel usually holds a promising work-in-progress, often a collage using one of my poems as a focal point. As I work, a breeze stirs the wind chimes on the door. A small brown lizard scurries across the tile floor. Gradiva smiles serenely as I add layers of translucent tissue paper to a poem, readying it for the illustrated poetry judging at the Sonoma County Fair.
Though I still don’t call myself an artist, I would describe myself as a happy child. Did I mention that I’m 68?
Arlene L. Mandell is a retired English professor whose work has appeared in more than 300 publications, including The New York Times, True Romance, and Women's Voices, and 15 anthologies. When her muse wanders off, she works in the garden or plays with her dogs.
