Want to Read a Thriller? Try a Nonfiction Book on Art Theft

by Gigi Pandian

My fascination with the world of art theft didn't begin the day in 1998 when I was trapped in the Louvre with an art thief.

But the experience definitely solidified my interest.

How could thieves escape in broad daylight from a world-famous museum with a painting by French Impressionist Camille Corot?

When I set out to write a mystery novel, I knew I wanted to involve art theft in some way. But aside from my afternoon spent trapped in the Louvre and a few mystery novels I'd read that featured dashing art thieves, I didn't know anything about the real world of art theft. Since I love research, this wasn't a problem. I started reading up on the subject.

The problem? It turns out nonfiction art theft books are fascinating. I couldn't stop reading.

I ordered books written by FBI agents and journalists. When I realized how many books I was buying, I checked out books from the library. I followed art theft blogs. I interviewed museum curators. The stories of real life con men and the people on their trail were more fascinating than just about any fiction I'd seen.

I knew I needed to stop my research and get writing. But how? There were so many more books that would give me insight... It's all too easy to get bogged down in research, especially when one's research reads like a thriller, which is why I need tricks to get myself back on track.

The collective pressure of NaNoWriMo, coming up in a few weeks, is the trick that works for me. There's a time and a place for research, and National Novel Writing Month is not that time. I'm doing research on a different topic this month, but come November 1, it's time to write.

The subject of my mystery series evolved from art to treasure, but the crux of the issue is the same. The world is full of objects of such beauty, and thieves come up with ways to steal, smuggle, or forge their way to them. There are endless scenarios in both real life and in fiction.

Martha. Art. Pbbblt.

Everybody in my family is naturally artistic.

We showcase my mother's oil paintings of the Vietnam landscape in rosewood frames around our living room and everyone assumes they're professional.

My brothers all sketch. One does comic style japanimation. The other specializes in animals.

Everybody in my family is naturally artistic.

Except me.

I can't make a face, a line, a circle. Nothing. I can't see something and represent it on paper. I don't eveh know where to start and I assure you I had a first class education complete with daily art classes where they tried to drill the elementary principles of drawing into my brain.

I was left with one simple conclusion thanks to first year biology:

I'm adopted.

Growing up, I found other reasons to add to this list.

My mother and brothers favor their left hand.
My nose tilts up while theirs falls flat.
They love camping and the outdoors and I hate hate hate all of that business.
They are all naturally slim and muscular and I'm, well, let's use the word: zaftig.
They found academia difficult and I always found it easy - not that I was some kind of genius or particularly motivated, I just never had to try very hard to meet the minimum requirements of whatever it took to hit the honor roll.

We can joke about it, but growing up, in the haze of teen melodrama, I genuinely imagined that I belonged to another family - one that would understand me if only I could find them. Preferably one with a last name like Rockefeller.

I'm guessing I'm not unique. Not just in my art suckiness, but also in how much I felt like an outcast in my own family, and when you're a kid spending a lot of time with your family it means feeling really, really alone.

For years, it was so easy to see the things that made us different, that I never thought about what made us the same. Not until my husband got together with my brothers' wives and had themselves a complain-about-the-family pow-wow.

Turns out we all are party poopers when it comes to Santa (who wants to admit to having a kid who falls for that line o' crap?) and giving gifts (clutter, ugh), and feelings (don't have 'em, don't wanna talk about 'em) and apocalypse scenarios (prepare or die) and a whole bunch of things.

It's just enough for me to figure: Art. Pbbblt.

The Working Artist

There's so many slants on the topic of Art. Frankly as it pertains to writing, LGC covered the Writer as Artist beautifully yesterday at the Pens. So let's talk about the Working Artist.

Here's a fun fact: I was in art school when I first moved out to California twenty years ago.

I was going to school for Interior Design but I still had to take the general art education classes which I LOVED, but no one will ever call me a visual artist. One semester I had two vastly different professors. They were both WONDERFUL artists. One, a painter of both oil and watercolor, who taught my Color Class. The other, an artist who did amazing still life in pencil, who taught Drawing 101.

The Painter lamented to us students day in and day out about how difficult it was to make a living. Being an artist sucked. He couldn't find outlets to sell his work. He couldn't support himself on his art alone which was why he was in the classroom teaching. Starving artist wasn't just a label it was his reality he would tell us bitterly.

The Line Artist (for lack of a better word) painted a picture of prosperity. He loved line drawings, he took commissions and people had begun to seek him out for specific projects. He was doing well, supporting himself, AND doing what he loved. He taught young students to share his knowledge and his LOVE of art.

If I'd had them separate semesters I might never have noticed the extreme dichotomy. But listening to them both made me realize that I wanted to be like the Line Artist. That it was possible to be commercial and be artistic, the two are not mutually exclusive.

And it really brought home that we all have a choice in how we perceive our life, our profession and our art. I choose to be a working artist. How about you?

Lisa

Art Dodging

L.G.C. Smith

Very few of the fiction writers I know define themselves as artists. Most of us write popular fiction, which lots of people think is anti-art by definition. We’d have to be gluttons for public derision to stand up and say, “Yes, I’m a literary artist, and my preferred form is the cozy.” Yet, to my well-trained eye (all those degrees, research, and years spent teaching in universities occasionally add up to something), many popular fiction writers produce exquisite novels of substance, style, and beauty. Many of them are, gasp, the lowest of the low: Romance writers. Eek. Surely everybody knows you can’t be an artist if you’re writing romance.

Most of my writer friends distance themselves from viewing their work as art. In fact, a reputation as an artist in the world of working writers seems to carry more negative connotations than positive. The writer as artist is frequently perceived as having great faith in his own talent and skill (arrogance). He is dedicated to his own vision (lacking in perspective and awareness of audience, as well as being resistant to revision and editing). He is more sensitive than the average person (defensive and unable to take criticism of any sort), and subject to the whims of his frequently absent muse (doesn’t make deadlines and doesn’t give his editor a heads up). The writer as artist is, in short, a pain in the butt. He is not professional.

Several months ago I had an experience that brought home to me that without realizing it, I’ve drifted into viewing writers who think of themselves as artists as amateurs. I do a little freelance editing on the side, and I happened across a piece of ‘literary fiction,’ repped by a well-regarded agent, and worthy in many of the ways that popular fiction is generally assumed not to be. It was exactly the kind of book I could see being heralded as ‘art.’ I found many flaws in the manuscript. Really big, story level problems that had a lot to do with the lack of narrative skill, motivation, conflict . . . basic stuff.

I found myself thinking that if the piece had been popular fiction, I would never tolerate such sloppy work. But since it was literary, well, maybe it didn’t matter. Standards aren’t as high. Literary writers do all sorts of clumsy things in the name of art. A lot of literary writers are good at capturing a poignant moment or an arresting insight, and wrapping them up with catchy metaphors, analogies and whatnot. But, in my estimation, if that’s all you’ve got, and you can’t put your language skills to good use at the story level, too, you’re an amateur.

I caught myself. Standards aren’t as high. In literary fiction. Really? Did I really just think that? It’s the complete opposite of the party line still believed by a lot of teachers, librarians, professors, and people who think about the relative merits of different types of fiction. It’s the opposite of what I was taught.

How did I come to this?

By reading a lot. Writing a lot. Teaching writing a lot. Teaching readers how to critique texts. Doing research in literacy communities, including non-academic ones like those of romance readers and writers. Talking to readers and writers of many sorts. Writing scores of novel reviews. Talking to other professors, teachers and librarians who find a wide range of popular fiction as meaningful, valuable and artful as good literary fiction. Listening to editors and agents. All that and more.

The issue isn’t that some literary fiction is amateurish. Of course, it is. That’s true of every genre. The issue is that there is such a rich array of art in the places where, as communities of readers, we still find it generally accepted that there isn’t much of value. Have those writers who have been barred from the Art Party created a successful dodge around how literary art is defined? It can be pretty convincing.

It wasn’t cool for me to allow a lower standard for that piece of literary fiction. I would be angry if an editor approached my books with the attitude that ‘it’s only romance, so why try to make it good.’ Everyone will be relieved to know that I revised my approach. All the literary fiction that comes my way receives the best edit I can offer, bringing to bear all I’ve learned about what makes an artful story.

I’m curious how the rest of your see your writing—is it art? Do you have prejudices against applying that word to fiction like I do? Are there other considerations that keep writers from self-identifying as artists? Or do you see yourself as an artist and your fiction as art? What do those words mean in terms of your writing? There’s a lot of contested territory here.

Sister Wendy

--Adrienne Miller

I have terrible confession to make. I’m not an art lover. Sure, I enjoy certain artists. I really like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and I’m a big Mary Blair fan. But when it comes to art as a whole, my feelings are decidedly lukewarm.

Maybe it is because the art world is just so damn intimidating. I’m never sure what I’m supposed to be seeing in painting. I know there is usually some deeper meaning behind the subject, but for the life of me I just don’t get what that field of wheat is supposed to symbolize besides, you know, some wheat. But that was before I found Sister Wendy. 

That’s right I love me some Sister Wendy. 

And not just because she’s just all-around freaking adorable. 

I love her because she was the first person that was able to talk about art in a way that made me understand it. When she describes in her little lispy voice about the symbology in a particular painting, I can actually see what she sees. For an  ignoramus like me, that’s quite a revelation. 

Don't Know Much about Art

Above, a painting of mine whose only real innovative aspect
is that the shadows are wrong.

Art. Gah. What do I say about a subject like this???

I've loved art my whole life. I even made a living for quite some time by working as an artist. But the truth is, I know nothing about the subject.

My approach to art is that of a child: It's fun. I wanna see if I can make something look like something else. And I like making pretty pictures.

Like most children, I adored drawing and painting and sculpting. Unlike most people, though, I never lost my taste for it as I grew up. Still, though I had a certain amount of talent, over time I realized I would never make it as a gallery artist. I came to understand that art, real art, MODERN art wasn't supposed to be about pretty pictures. It was supposed to be about social commentary. The symbolic representation of angst and alienation. The expression of the innermost, usual negative, often existentialist thoughts of an artist.

(Ever go to an art opening and read the "artist's statement"? I rest my case.)

Part of my problem with this approach to art, which could be blamed on me being middle-aged if it weren't for the fact that I've believed it my whole life, is that so many artists are young. Barely out of their teenage years. And most of us aren't that interested in the innermost thoughts of the young, because, frankly, most young people haven't lived much yet.

Give me the expressions of old folks, and I'm there. Or the very young, of course, before they become self-conscious. But the 20-year-old gallery darling? Eh.

To quote my character Annie Kincaid, protagonist of the Art Mystery novels, "Call me a boring traditionalist, but when it came to art my tastes were stuck in the Renaissance, an era when artists expressed humanity's noblest hopes, ambitions, and dreams. If I wanted a scathing commentary on social alienation I could read the newspaper."

Many of Caravaggio's paintings were considered quite shocking in his time.
It was a different brand of innovation.

Okay, I'm not actually that extreme. Ever since the birth of photography, the goal of painting has gone beyond mere representation of reality. And there are plenty of examples of "ugly" modern art that truly speak to me, that beckon the viewer to look beyond the obvious to a deeper meaning, a complex understanding of the human condition and the world around us.

But the problem with so many modern artists valuing innovation over technique is that there isn't all that much to say after the first expose. For example, the first fellow to paint a black triangle on a black background? A genius. The similar work that followed? Derivative tripe.

Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, made from a urinal, was innovative in 1917.
Later toilet-inspired works? Not so much, in my opinion.

I think part of the problem with art in this country is that most students aren't taught the basics of the classical approach. Like modern dancers who study ballet, modern artists in Europe learn to copy Old Masters first, because skipping the history of one's field comes at the expense of depth, history, gravitas.

As a teacher in Florence once told me:
"You must learn your tradition in order to properly spurn it."Above, my copy of a detail from a 1640 Georges de La Tour painting,
The Fortune Teller

On the other hand...some of us are great at mimicking tradition, but not so gifted at innovation. Which isn't to say I won't, someday, become a gallery darling myself. Maybe when I retire from writing full-time I'll discover a true gift for dripping art on a canvas on the floor, a la Jackson Pollock. But I'm not banking on it.

In the meantime, I'll paint pretty pictures just because. It's fun.

Ojos de Dios

One of my favorite art projects as a kid was that God's Eye project. Remember that? The Ojo de Dios?

You took two popsicle sticks and held them crosswise to each other. Then you wound a piece of yarn around them, weaving the strand up and over then over again. You added another color, and another, lining those strands up perfectly, so that nothing was out of place. That knot at the end was the hardest part--you had to make sure it was sturdy enough to stay in place, but if it was too tight, the yarn pulled, and if it was too loose, the yarn sagged. (Sure, there were signs that this was more important, somehow, and I'm sure we talked about how the four points stood for earth, air, fire, and water, but IT WAS ALL ABOUT THE YARN for me.)

I was a master God's Eye maker. I'm just saying. I know my strengths, and if it involves yarn, I'm your girl. But somewhere along the line, God's Eyes got mixed up in my personal dictionary with dream catchers. But both, I learned along the way somewhere, were childish projects. They weren't something babies made, even though they'd been called Art when I'd learned how to make them. (My dream catchers didn't look like this one; they looked like twigs and twisted string, a forest macrame.)


[Aside: Boy, I loved me some macrame, too.]

Art Projects. We filed the popsicle sticks in the bins next to the dyed macaroni (remember that dry paste smell of the pasta? The way some broke and poked your fingers unexpectedly?) and dried peas (oh, the clatter of dessicated legumes rolling off the table to the tiled first-grade floor). Toothpicks and Elmer's Glue. Glitter and left-handed scissors that drove you crazy because you were a righty but no one could find the right-handed ones (that's still a mystery to me, one that jolts me awake in the middle of the night sometimes and I AM NOT KIDDING HERE--why don't they work the same way? Spatially, I cannot figure this out).

At some point, Art turned to Craft. And craft turned to something that was less than art, while art became more than. Better than. More difficult and more nebulous.

I taught (very) briefly at the California College for Arts and Crafts. I loved that the c-word was in their title, but in 2003, they took it out, and now they are simply College for the Arts. It made me sad: they'd started as part of the Arts and Crafts movement, and I thought it was a shame to lose a reference to that. It was always school for the "practical arts" as well as decorative ones but aren't those, by definition, crafts? Why do we need to feel shame about the word?

Craft can be defined as functional art. And God knows, the arts I love best are functional:

Writing delivers information, meaning and emotion.
Knitting delivers warmth and protection.

Functional. Utilitarian. I hone the craft of my writing every time I sit at my computer, and my knitting is a crafted art. The words blend together like my childish ideas of God's Eyes and dream catchers. All guard the weaver/writer (or the bearer/wearer) and it comes down to this: art IS craft, and craft IS art, and the combination of both? Sublime.