Glory in the colour of your words…ART FOR WRITERS

This is one of the Nana scultures by Niki de Saint Phalle and you don’t need me to tell you it’s celebrating life, colour and being a woman. It’s a good feeling for this holiday week.

Inspired by Antoni Gaudí’s Parc Güell in Barcelona, Spain, she created her own sculpture park in Italy. Work started in 1980 and I think – in true Gaudi style – it still continues. She also developed her own perfume to help finance it and if it smells any thing like the spirit of the  Nanas sculptures I want some. Now.

Much of her work is public art and can be seen in Europe and America. According to Wikipedia the only axample in the British Isles is a triangular mirror mosaic above the entrance to the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art

A critic has observed that Saint Phalle’s “insistence on exuberance, emotion and sensuality, her pursuit of the figurative and her bold use of color have not endeared her to everyone in a minimalist age”.

I bet. But I think a picture of your favourite  Nana (google them) should be stuck inside the door of a kitchen cupboard or near your computer screen just because…

And what as writers should we take away from her work…? Perhaps it’s inspiration for poets striving to pin down a moment, a feeling, rather than create a structured narrative. And for prose writers? It is easier to write the dark emotions – anger, despair, depression – than it is to capture the light magic of joy. Well, Niki de Saint Phalle managed it without making it cute or clouded in a kind of gauzy romanticism.

Give a go. Forget minimalist.

Glory in the colour of your words and the strength of your metaphors. It is tinsel time, after all.

If you enjoyed this, there’s a pretty good chance you’d also like my writing guide Back to Creative Writing School. 100+ reviews on Amazon…just saying.
Amazon UK    Amazon US