“There are some days I think I’m going to die from an overdosis of satisfaction.”  – Salvador Dali

I felt that “overdosis of satisfaction” when I visited the Salvador Dali Museum in Bruges during that trip I wrote about last week. Dali is celebrated for his surrealistic paintings, his “art of exaggeration,” and love of the bizarre. Less well known, but just as fantastic, are his book illustrations and sculpture.

My favorite was his Alice in Wonderland illustrations. An image of Alice skipping rope is hidden in nearly all the illustrations. See if you can find them.

His sculptures are just as wild and wonderful.

And all this set in a corner below the famous Bell Tower featured in the equally bizarre and fantastic film In Bruges. No wonder my whole visit there felt surreal.

 

“A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others.”– Salvador Dali 

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Art inspires so much of what I do, including the novels I write. Art used in the recovery process—in this case, metal sculpture–plays an important role in When Things Go Missing. Here’s a peek inside:

Cal pulls the welding hood down over his face and watches flame meet metal through the dark visor, his hands twisting and turning the iron to match the images in his mind. It’s not like he has this clear idea of what he’s creating. It’s more like a germ of an idea, a felt sense of something that bubbles up from his subconscious—something that wants to be that he’s giving birth to, pulling into the world with the sheer force of his will and the fire’s might.

Sometimes it starts with a memory or a fragment from a dream or nightmare—a demon that’s been haunting him or some sweet yearning calling to him like a siren’s song. Whatever it ends up being in the end—a wild-eyed rooster, a hunched-backed ogre, or an angel with lifted wings—it starts out the same: hands, metal, fire. Cal’s just the conduit, surrendering himself to this thing moving through him.

When Things Go Missing is now available at Amazon, Bookshop, Barnes & Noble and other major retailers, including your local bookstore.

NOTE: I’m leaving on a short trip to Minnesota to visit my brother and his wife, so I pulled this post and the last from my archives to hold us over until I have time to write again. I’ll be back soon.