An Experiment with Form

that was labor intensive!

I wrote this in 2023 and it ended up being harder than I thought. Not the story itself, but the form I wanted to tell it in. The original inspiration for this was one of my favorite movies, Girl with a Pearl Earring. I have the book too but it’s unfortunately still on my TBR. Anyway, I was wondering how this story might have been different if, instead of Vemeer, Catharina had been attracted to Griet. I thought about it for a while, off and on, about how the story might unfold, and made a bit of a start on it. A while later, I was looking at art on The National Gallery of Art website when this piece caught my eye. I was thinking of writing something ekphastic about it when I remembered the Griet piece. So I started again with the artwork in mind. As I worked on it, I began thinking about how the societal implications of Katharina’s attraction to Griet would differ between 1623 and 2023. I wanted to tell a story from each century and I wanted them to be side by side. But how to do it? I’m not good with tech. I can tell you this: I fiddled with the form for days, trying to get the lines of each side to align. I don’t even remember what all I tried until I tried a pdf and it worked, finally. (The above is a screenprint of the pdf.) I don’t think I could replicate it again, though, because it was a pure accident that it ended up pretty much how I wanted it. I really wanted the image and the title in the center of the page but, oh well. Couldn’t get it to mind me. It was rebellious so I let it be where it wanted to be. Although it was frustrating, it was still fun to create. I hope you enjoyed reading it.