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Have you ever really liked something that you are terrible at?
That’s me and art!
I remember taking my first art class in middle school and loving it! For someone that was so focused on math and science, getting a chance to delve into my creative side … albeit rudimentary and unimpressive to anyone but me and maybe my family … was like my own little slice of heaven on earth.
Then in high school, I took art history, and that sparked another desire to travel the world and see famous art pieces in person. Over the years, I’ve gone to some of the world’s best museums: the Louvre, the MET, the Prado, the Getty, the Vatican museums, Pompidou Center, MOMA, various Smithsonians, etc. and each experience continued to spark my interest in art.
That’s probably why I feel compelled to weave in art in some way into my books.
In The Accidental Hero, Mena is an art conservator, and in her first scene, she encounters a magnificent piece of art inside her boss’s mansion—a Bocio statue.
Here’s an excerpt from that chapter.
Mena Nix peered at the bulging eyes and flared nose of the statue showcased on a carved mahogany pedestal. A miniature bocio figure from West Africa stared back at her. She’d studied these figures while getting her Masters degree, but had never seen one in person until now.
Mena’s eyes trailed down the statue, wrapped in fiber rope. Reaching toward the wooden face, she resisted the urge to run her finger along the wide lips and feel the grooves in the wood. As the conservator for art and sculpture at the Genesis Gallery, Mena knew first-hand how the oils and dirt from human hands could ruin art.
The artist’s technique was brilliant. Preserved in its original condition, the piece showed no signs of restoration.
Coarse and abrasive, the tightly bound cords that formed the statue’s body were believed to be symbolic of the violence and trauma suffered by West Africans for centuries through the slave trade. If she remembered correctly, the bocio figures were important to West African tribes practicing the Vodun religion. They believed the miniature statues would empower them with strategies to face difficult and threatening social conditions. Mena took a long swallow of champagne and then placed the flute onto the empty tray of a passing waiter.
She could use her very own bocio right now.
If not for tonight’s gala celebration, Mena would have been locked in her apartment, sedating herself with wine and alcohol. The anniversary of the biggest mistake of her life still stung, reminding her of how she’d been duped. Mr. Wrong had been disguised as Mr. Right, luring her toward devastating heartbreak. How could she have missed the signs? How could she have been so wrong about the debonair Dr. Michael Marsh? He’d obliterated her trust in him and the sanctity of their relationship, and she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to trust anyone again.
The risks were too high.
This Human Figure (Bocio) at the Yale University Art Gallery was the inspiration for the statue Mena saw in The Accidental Hero.
Curious about how Mena tapped into the power of the Bocio to make it through the anniversary party? Check out Chapters 4, 5 and 6 of The Accidental Hero!
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