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"At each of his weddings, he’d married his muse. I was surprised to learn this was true of my mother’s, too. But his brides didn’t stay still under his brushes. They wanted more, and they wanted families."

I like the way you structured this essay and your slant as a child witness makes it even more compeling.

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Thank you so much, Jill

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Gorgeous writing. The painting is complex on many levels. I’m so interested in the idea of our parents leaving us breadcrumbs of knowledge about themselves. It takes a brave person like you to collect them.

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Thank you for this, Anita. Exactly, breadcrumbs to themselves…

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I loved the form of this, and I also suspect you have much more to say about this painting!

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Thank you, Sal.

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Gosh, this is good, Eliza. I am fascinated by how to work with, and structure, this kind of layered, complex material. The fragments seem to give the writing a way forward when there is no way forward, or they bounce off each other in a way that is not at all linear and doesnt need to be -- can't be. There's something about finding your own voice within it all, too, after such erasure.

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Thank you, Lucy, for these observations. And finding my voice is definitely controlling the whole endeavor.

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The form of this essay is very powerful. The painting is already a dialogue, as the article sees it, between artist and model, man and woman, and you make that more obvious with your two-part structure of alternating voices. What happens when the muse (or daughter) talks back? You’re showing us. Thanks for this—

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Thank you, Victoria. It’s very satisfying to not just passively read about my father’s work ..

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It is an uncomfortable painting, Eliza – yes, a strange inheritance!. And the way you've shown how it relates to your family history makes it all the more compelling.

I'm reminded a bit of Sarah Moss's novel, Bodies of Light, in which a pre-Raphaelite artist father (Alfred Moberley) portrays his daughters as nymphs (ethical dilemma alert!). His wife is an activist; his daughters are ambitious; the main protagonist, Ally, becomes one of the first female doctors in England. Really interesting novel, interweaving art and feminism.

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Oh just fantastic! I’ve got to check this out. Thank you, Wendy

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What an inheritance, what a painting. It is deeply unsettling. Jupiter seems powerless for the king of the gods. He looks consumed by regret, resentment, things he can’t name. The luminosity at the right of the painting suggests a path out that he will not take.

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Gorgeous observations. Thank you, Rona.

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"Careful the things you say, children will listen." Thanks as always for shayour journey of (self) discovery and art.

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Thank you, Amy

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