Great Read...Words that inspire my art.

I loved this book, "The Wood Wife" by Terri Windling. It's an intriguing story with a compelling mix of mystery, poetry, and a lot of wonderful visual imagery. There are mythical spirit characters as well as down to earth humans set in the beautiful American Southwest. Each chapter starts with a poetry quote of the fictional poet character from the book, as well as quotes from other 'real' poets. One of the other main characters in the story is a painter and her art is described in such detail that I can 'see' the canvas as I read. I loved every page.

The author credits her visual inspiration from well-known British painter, Brian Froud. I can see her inspiration from author, Charles deLint as well. I have enjoyed everyone of deLint's novels over the years, reading and re-reading them. I enjoyed reading Windling's novel so much, I look forward to re-reading it as well. In the Author's Note at the end of the book, she describes how her novel started out as a series of short stories and 'shape-shifted' into its current form.

As I have created a whole series of pieces based on the concept of shape-shifting, I guess this novel was a natural for me. This book helped me see once again how important words are to my art.