Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Blood Water Paint
WORK NOTES:
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BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://joymccullough.com/
CITY: Seattle
STATE: WA
COUNTRY: United States
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PERSONAL
Married; children: two.
EDUCATION:Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, theater.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Novelist, playwright, freelance editor, ghost writer, and blogger.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Young adult novelist and playwright Joy McCullough studied theater at Northwestern University. Based in Seattle, Washington, she is also a freelance editor, ghost writer, and blogger. In 2018, McCullough published Blood Water Paint, a fictional account of the historical figure, seventeenth-century painter Artemisia Gentileschi in Renaissance Rome. After her mother died when she was twelve, Artemisia is taught how to paint from her painter father. By age seventeen, although she has natural talent, she is not given credit for her work because she is female. Her father hires a tutor, Agostino Tassi, to teach her, but instead Tassi rapes her. Artemisia fights back in court where she is tortured, and through her paintings using strong women as her subjects. McCullough uses verse for Artemisia’s voice. “Her narration, interspersed with prose from the perspective of her older self, draws inspiration from the women of the Bible, such as Judith and Susanna,” said reviewer Angela Leeper writing in BookPage. Leeper added that the book will resonate with modern feminists.
To Shelley Diaz in School Library Journal, McCullough explained why she wrote the book in verse. “I really love novels in verse because they cut right to the emotional core of a story. … The rhythm, the economy of language, and the emotional core are all aspects of verse that I believe really appeal to young readers.” On the Bustle Website in an interview with E. Ce Miller, McCullough declared that the violent aspects of the book, the rape, torture, and decapitation, are brutal. “Writing about them in verse allowed me to take a reader into the sheer horror of the events without immersing them (or myself) in every traumatic detail. A writer can elicit images and emotions in a few words of verse that might require pages of prose.” she said.
The book received much praise. “This is a wonderfully written tale of a woman who actually made it into the history books, an early feminist,” according to Heather Pittman in Voice of Youth Advocates. Noting how the subject matter of powerful men taking advantage of women is especially timely, a Kirkus Reviews contributor noted that Artemisia expresses herself with passion, “Unfortunately, those who lack familiarity with the historical facts or context may emerge from this fire scorched but not enlightened.” Nevertheless, Caitlin Kling said in Booklist: “With dazzling surrealist overtones, McCullough manages to vividly capture a singularly brave, resilient feminist who became an icon.” “The expression of her intense feelings is gripping and her complexity of character make her a force to be reckoned with,” said Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan in School Library Journal.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, October 15, 2017, Caitlin Kling, review of Blood Water Paint, p. 48.
BookPage, March, 2018, Angela Leeper, review of Blood Water Paint, p. 28.
Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2018, review of Blood Water Paint.
School Library Journal, January, 2018, Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, review of Blood Water Paint, p. 89.
Voice of Youth Advocates, February, 2018, Heather Pittman, review of Blood Water Paint, p. 58.
ONLINE
Bustle, https://www.bustle.com/ (June 1, 2018) E. Ce Miller, author interview.
School Library Journal, https://www.slj.com/ (April 1, 2018), Shelley Diaz, author interview.
My blogs
Joy McCullough, MG & YA author
14/48: The World's Quickest Theater Festival
About me
Introduction
I write MG & YA fiction, as well as plays. My debut novel, BLOOD WATER PAINT releases March 6, 2018 from Dutton Young Readers. I homeschool two children, work as a freelance editor and ghostwriter, and eat more than my share of chocolate. I'm represented by Jim McCarthy at Dystel & Goderich. I'm on Twitter @JMCWrites and there's more about me at www.joymcculloughcarranza.com.
About the Author
Joy McCullough writes books and plays from her home in the Seattle area, where she lives with her husband and two children. She studied theater at Northwestern University, fell in love with her husband atop a Guatemalan volcano, and now spends her days surrounded by books and kids and chocolate. Blood Water Paint is her debut novel.
www.joymccullough.com
@jmcwrites
Joy McCullough On Reclaiming the Female Body and “Blood Water Paint”
By Shelley Diaz on April 9, 2018 1 Comment
Photo by John Ulman
Playwright Joy McCullough wrote a theater piece about the Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi and knew that she wanted teens to know the story of the young painter, who often depicted biblical women in her work. Gentileschi’s life, her rape by mentor Agostino Tassi, and the trial that later ensued in 1600s Rome, is lyrically presented in McCullough’s YA debut. The novel in verse has received multiple starred reviews, including from SLJ, which called it, “a thrilling portrait of a woman who refused to be dismissed.”
What inspired you to write about Artemisia Gentileschi?
I discovered Artemisia many moons ago as a passing reference in a Margaret Atwood novel. I’d never heard of her, so I went searching. When I learned about Artemisia Gentileschi’s story, I was outraged I hadn’t heard of her before. The transcripts from her rapist’s trial still exist, and I read those with horror over how much hasn’t changed in how we treat women and sexual violence. I wrote the story as a play first, which had a long development process, but when the play was produced in 2015, I started thinking about it as a YA novel when I found myself hoping teenagers would come to see the play.
Most of the story from Artemisia’s point of view is composed of verse, while snippets of her mother’s bedtime stories, based on women of the Bible, are written in prose. Why did you choose to construct the narrative this way?
I really love novels in verse because they cut right to the emotional core of a story. I also think the verse format makes this really painful story more accessible for readers. It’s common for people to have a perception that verse is poetry and poetry is hard. But I think those people are mentally stuck analyzing dead white guy poetry in boring English classes. The rhythm, the economy of language, and the emotional core are all aspects of verse that I believe really appeal to young readers, especially.
As far as weaving the verse with the mother’s prose stories, there’s a strong history of weaving forms in theater. Musicals blend singing and dancing and spoken scenes. Shakespeare blends blank verse, rhyming verse, and prose. Even a straight play with a consistent textual style is blending the art forms of the writer, the director, the actors, and the designers into one piece of work. So I think I’ll always be coming from my grounding in theater, and that’s reflected in the blending of the forms.
This was originally a play and then you adapted it for the YA audience. Was that super difficult? How did the two mediums differ?
I spent a lot of years working on Blood/Water/Paint, the play. So I knew the story and characters inside and out. I thought. But a play is all dialogue and action. It’s extremely external. The internal is up to the actors. And verse is extremely internal and usually has minimal dialogue. So that was a huge shift for me. In a way it was wonderful. I thought I knew all there was to know about Artemisia. And suddenly I was looking at the story from inside her head in a very different way than I ever had before. But it was also a challenge, for sure.
But what they have in common is that both plays and verse are extremely sparse; they require a writer to cut away anything extraneous. My full-length plays are [no more than] 15,000 words, for reference. So that economy of language was something I was already used to from writing plays.
Can you tell us about your research process?
I researched the play so long ago, it’s hard to recall. I know I leaned heavily on a wonderful book called Artemisia Gentileschi by Mary D. Garrard, which includes not only a great deal of art historical context but also the 300-page transcript of Agostino Tassi’s trial for raping Artemisia. As I researched the book, more recently, I did some more research on day-today life—things like what she would have worn, foods she would have bought at the market, the layout of her neighborhood in Rome. As a playwright, I didn’t have to worry about those things!
There’s an interesting counterpoint in Blood Water Paint between the male gaze and a woman’s quest to reclaim the female body. Did you set out to do this in your novel?
Yes. Part of what made Artemisia’s art so special, compared to the rest of the art of her day, was her perspective as a woman. The male painters took on the subjects of women like Susanna and Judith and painted them very much through the male gaze. Artemisia had a completely different take on these stories, as a young woman in a world of men. So I was always setting out to tell that story.
Interestingly, it took my male editor to point out that while Artemisia was very intent on reclaiming the female body in her work, the character I had created seemed completely disconnected from her own body. I was horrified that I’d denied her that connection! But thank goodness for the revision process.
Even though this book takes place in 1610 Rome, there are many “modern” themes woven throughout. How did you balance and work in topics like patriarchy, feminism, and consent within this historical setting?
Sadly, I really didn’t have to work them in. They were relevant to Artemisia’s story in the 17th century, and they’re still relevant. Certainly my own modern perspective on patriarchy, feminism, and consent come into play, but I wasn’t consciously weaving them in. I was only telling Artemisia’s story, from my point of view.
Considering the conversations we’re having about sexual assault, this historical fiction novel is, unfortunately, very relevant. What do you hope today’s teens take away from Artemisia’s tale?
I hope readers take away whatever they need. Every reader will come to a book with different needs, different histories, different life circumstances the day they pick up the book. What a reader takes from any book is so personal and so varied that I’m just honored people are reading.
As for our current cultural moment, I am grateful for the discourse and aware that every time a story is heard and validated, a survivor is watching. Maybe they haven’t told their story yet, or maybe they weren’t believed. It’s powerful for those survivors to see stories like Artemisia’s brought into the light, and for that I’m so grateful for the timing.
What are you working on next?
I’ve just opened a new play in Seattle at Macha Theater Works called Smoke & Dust, which runs through April 14. It’s about a 17th-century female composer, but also about vlogs and cyberbullying and the nature of beauty and the complexity of using one’s sexuality to survive.
In fiction, I’m working on both YA and middle grade projects, but because publishing is publishing, I can’t tell you much more than that. Hopefully soon, though!
An Interview with Joy McCullough, Author of Blood Water Paint – by Jennifer Ansbach
Posted by CBethM on March 11, 2018 in Author Posts, Surprise Sunday | 2 Comments
Today, Nerdy Book Club member Jennifer Ansbach is in conversation with author Joy McCullough, whose novel Blood Water Paint came out this week.
Told alternately in verse and prose, this novel takes us to the high Renaissance where Artemesia Gentileschi paints in her father’s studio, creating art he takes credit for. Comforted after the loss of her mother by the community of women her mother created for her through the stories she told, Artemisia finds the courage to stand up to her attacker and name him in court. Haunting and lyrical, this novel’s layers of art and intertextuality offers readers a glimpse into the past with a clear view of the present.
Jennifer: My questions come as a Nerdy reader, a writer, and a teacher. How did this story first come to you?
Joy: Artemisia Gentileschi’s story first came to me as a passing reference in a Margaret Atwood novel. The reference sent me seeking out information about the historical figure and I fell down a rabbit hole of research. She grabbed me as a subject I had to write about.
The day you sat down to begin writing this story, what compelled you to the page?
The day I began working on the play version of Artemisia’s story was so long ago I have no idea what was happening in my life. But more recently, the play was being produced and I was thinking about how much I hoped young people would come to see the play. By that time I had begun writing MG and YA novels, so I started to see the possibilities to reach more teens with Artemisia’s story if it were adapted into a YA novel.
This is your debut, but the tenth novel you’ve written. What of those other novels is carried in this book, whether literally or in its spirit and soul?
Oh that’s such an interesting question. And I think there’s an added layer in that I wrote Blood Water Paint as a play well before I ever started writing novels. So the story’s place in my heart pre-dates all the fiction I’ve written. It’s the story that would not let me go. But my experience in writing the first nine novels gave me the skills and confidence I needed to try to tell the story in another way. And also, after having written nine novels that did not get published, there was a sort of freedom in writing Blood Water Paint that I’d never felt before. I was 100% convinced it was completely unmarketable and I was so over caring. I just let myself write it how I wanted to write it, even if each choice seemed less marketable than the last. I did not believe it would be published, so I wrote it completely, unapologetically for me.
What advice would you give yourself before you sat down to start that first novel if you could go back?
The only thing I would tell myself as I embarked on writing the first novel is to keep writing, that all of the rejection and heartache and tears and words would be worth it. To try to stay in the moment and learn from each manuscript, each critique partner, each rejection, and keep writing the stories only I could tell. Because I don’t wish I had done anything differently. I don’t think there was a quicker way to get here.
How did you determine the best form for this novel?
Blood Water Paint is a historical novel, and a distant historical novel at that, set in 1611. But it’s also extremely relevant to the current day. I think it can be really easy for the details of day-to-day life in a distant historical novel to hold the reader at arm’s length. When those things are stripped away, though, as they are in verse, I think it makes it easier for the reader to relate the story to their own time and life. So that was one reason verse felt like a natural fit.
Also, this is an emotionally difficult story—it’s about sexual assault; there is torture, a beheading. I think writing and reading this story in prose would be brutal. It could certainly be done, but not by me. Verse allows the reader to make emotional leaps with just a nudge, rather than having a horrifying scene described in full detail.
Can you talk a little bit about the intertextuality of this novel, weaving poetry, prose, spoken storytelling, and the painting?
There’s a strong history of weaving forms in theater. Musicals blend singing and dancing and spoken scenes. Shakespeare blends blank verse, rhyming verse, and prose. Even a straight play with a consistent textual style is blending the art forms of the writer, the director, the actors, and the designers into one piece of work. So I think I’ll always be coming from my grounding in theater, and that’s reflected in the blending of the forms.
What is your ideal reader for this book?
I hope all sorts of readers read this book and I will be thrilled no matter who they are. I get most excited when I think about teenage girls reading, though. I wish I had known Artemisia when I was a teenager. Then again, a teacher at an all-boys school said she wanted to use the book in her class and I was thrilled. I didn’t write it for boys, but I will be delighted if boys read it and engage with it. Adults too!
What part of this book was the biggest challenge to write? Why?
Not specific to one section of the book, but in adapting from a play, I often had to translate pure dialogue into something much more internal, with very little dialogue. I came into the process of writing the novel thinking I knew the character inside and out, from writing the play. And in some ways I did. But I had never been inside her head in the same way. So that was an exciting challenge.
What part of this collaborative process of bringing this story first to a stage gave you the greatest insight into character or craft in turning it into a novel?
Collaborative is a really important descriptor for works of theater, because even a one-person play involves many different artists. It’s one of the things I love about theater. Really wonderful actors bring all sorts of nuance to characters beyond what’s on the page, and working on the play, some of the biggest insight into character came through working with a wonderful Seattle actor named Michael Blum, who played Artemisia’s father. On the outside, Michael is a kind of gruff, perpetually disgruntled character. Scratch him with a feather, though, and he’s all heart. Artemisia’s father makes some terrible decisions. And there’s more than a little of my own father in Orazio, it’s fair to say. Michael’s performance gave me keen insight into Orazio’s layers, and I feel like those bled through into the novel, where I had to work to put that on the page, since I didn’t have Michael there to communicate it with his heart.
Many of us who teach writing rely on mentor texts to help guide writers. Did you have any mentor texts in crafting this novel, which blends different forms seamlessly?
Well first, thank you. The blending of the forms was something that came at the very end of the revision process with my editor. Up until then, the whole thing had been verse. And at the very end of revisions, before it went off to copy-edits, my editor suggested we try the mother’s stories in prose, for more of a contrast in the voices.
Playing with multiple forms, multiple storylines, multiple time periods is something I’ve been doing in my plays for a long time. So when it came to doing this in Blood Water Paint, it felt fairly natural. A couple plays spring to mind as early influences in this way. Top Girls by Caryl Churchill is a 1982 play in which a woman’s dinner party boasts guests who are historical and literary figures from a variety of centuries. Another is Arcadia by Tom Stoppard (1993), which is a play entirely about the relationship between the past and the present, weaving together the lives of the present day residents of an English country house with the lives of the resident who lived in the same house in the early 1800s.
How did you come about telling this story at this time? How do you see it in the current context of the #metoo movement into which it is now born?
I started working on the play in 2001, so for me it far pre-dates the #metoo movement. It’s a fluke of timing that the book is being born now. I’m grateful that Artemisia’s story—and many other stories—are being heard now. But I will say that I tried and failed to get the play produced for more than a decade. I told my own story to multiple churches who employed the youth pastor who abused me and there were no consequences for him. It’s more common for stories to be ignored or disbelieved than heard. Is #metoo a turning point? I don’t know. But I am grateful for the discourse, and aware that every time a story is heard and validated, a survivor is watching. Maybe they haven’t told their story yet, or maybe they weren’t believed. It’s powerful for those survivors to see stories like Artemisia’s brought into the light, and for that I’m grateful for the timing.
This book transcends both time and space, making 1610 Rome a contemporary text to analyze our world and the role of women in it. What of the original trial transcripts and story you came across did you find most resonant?
The way a woman—a victim’s—voice is doubted, scrutinized, diminished, held up to wildly different standards than a perpetrator’s leapt out to me as soon as I read the trial transcripts. Artemisia Gentileschi was literally tortured in the courtroom, in front of her rapist to prove she was telling the truth. He was not tortured. Of course we don’t use thumbscrews today, but social media and the press and the court system all work in concert to shred a victim to pieces in a similar way, while often leaving perpetrators unscathed.
What do you hope readers take from this book?
Whatever they need. Every reader will come to a book with different needs, different histories, different life circumstances the day they pick up the book. What a reader takes from any book is so personal and so varied that I’m just honored people are reading.
Because this is the Nerdy Book Club, what are you reading?
Yesterday’s bookstore haul included MARY’S MONSTER by Lita Judge, and ALL OUT, edited by Saundra Mitchell. I am so excited to dive into both!
Jennifer Ansbach is a lifelong reader and book lover. You can often find her on the sofa curled up with tea and a book. Her book Take Charge of Your Teaching Evaluation: How to Grow Professionally and Get a Good Evaluation is out now from Heinemann. When she’s not reading, she’s tweeting at @JenAnsbach.
Joy McCullough writes books and plays from her home in the Seattle area, where she lives with her husband and two children. She studied theater at Northwestern University, fell in love with her husband atop a Guatemalan volcano, and now spends her days surrounded by books and kids and chocolate. Blood Water Paint is her debut novel. You can find her on Twitter @JMCwrites and at joymccullough.com.
'Blood Water Paint' Is Inspired By The True Story Of The First Time A Sexual Assault Survivor Won A Legal Battle Against Her Assailant
ByE. Ce Miller
2 months ago
Speaking directly to the rising #MeToo and Time’s Up movements is a new novel that you'll definitely want to add to you TBR pile this spring. A timely debut, Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough blends historical fiction with poetry to recreate the all-too-true story of the first recorded account of a sexual assault survivor winning the legal battle against her assailant. That victim was the artist Artemisia Gentileschi, who at just 17-years-old was one of the most talented (though unknown) Italian Baroque painters in the world — and who, in the wake of her assault, was faced with having to choose between her talent and her voice.
Spoiler alert: she chose to raise her voice.
Out now from Penguin Random House, Blood Water Paint transports readers to 1610 Rome: into Artemisia’s studio where she was raped by her painting instructor, and the courtroom where her life changed forever. For lovers of writers like Laurie Halse Anderson and An Na, Blood Water Paint is feminist historical fiction written in verse, giving readers a glimpse into the teen’s most intimate thoughts while highlighting a centuries-old, yet startlingly familiar time and place where men took what they wanted from women with practically no consequences.
Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough, $12, Amazon
Playwright and author Joy McCullough adapted Artemisia’s story, from a play produced by Live Girls! in 2015, keeping young readers in particular in mind. “Verse appealed to me partly as a playwright, since I’m used to telling a story in a sparse, stripped-down way,” says McCullough, in an interview with Bustle. “Also, the events of this particular story are brutal. There’s rape, there’s torture, there’s decapitation. Certainly those events have been depicted in prose fiction. But writing about them in verse allowed me to take a reader into the sheer horror of the events without immersing them (or myself) in every traumatic detail. A writer can elicit images and emotions in a few words of verse that might require pages of prose. That economy of language can be both safer for the reader, and more powerful, I think.”
But play-to-verse isn’t the only evolution Artemisia’s story has undergone over the years. As 17th century painter, her story was forgotten for nearly 200 years before Artemisia reemerged as a feminist icon in the 20th century. Now, she’s speaking to 21st century women through McCullough’s novel. I ask McCullough if she has a sense of how Artemisia’s story evolved over time, and what led to this renewed interest in both her art and her experience.
"A writer can elicit images and emotions in a few words of verse that might require pages of prose. That economy of language can be both safer for the reader, and more powerful, I think.”
“I imagine there have always been women who’ve discovered Artemisia’s work and story in dusty art history volumes and clung to it,” McCullough says. “The transcript from her rapist’s trial has been preserved for more than four hundred years, and I feel certain that preservation was through the efforts of women who insisted this story mattered. I discovered her in 2001, as a passing reference in The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood. And I think the Internet has made it easier to share her work and her story.”
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood, $7, Amazon
But the retellings of Artemisia’s story haven’t always been the clear nod to feminism that Blood Water Paint is. “There was a film about Artemisia in 1997. It’s classified as a romance, and Artemisia insists to the end that she was never raped, and Tassi [Agostino Tassi, Artemisia’s rapist] confesses to raping her only to end her ordeal during the trial,” McCullough says. “The filmmaker has said she ‘didn’t want to show her as a victim but like a more modern woman who took her life into her own hands.’” An interesting choice of words, since Artemisia was subject to torture — thumbscrews, that nearly destroyed her hands and her ability to paint — in order to prove to the court that she was telling the truth.
“That ignores the reality anyone can read in the pages of the trial transcript,” McCullough says. “Artemisia repeats while under torture, ‘It’s true, it’s true, it’s true!’ I’m so wary of the insistence on presenting women as survivors and never victims — certainly Artemisia survived, but to ignore the fact that she was a victim erases the egregious violence done to her.”
Photo by John Ulman
Although Blood Water Paint speaks powerfully to the conversation around sexual assault happening in the United States right now, McCullough admits having mixed feelings about the #MeToo movement itself.
"...certainly Artemisia survived, but to ignore the fact that she was a victim erases the egregious violence done to her.”
“I have to admit to some cynicism about the movement. Almost nothing has changed in more than 400 years since Artemisia was tortured in a courtroom, after all. Why should things change now? Part of that cynicism is self-protective — it’s deeply painful to hope for change and be denied again and again," she says. "But I think the current discourse is valuable even if the only outcome is the encouragement to speak up and share these stories. And as some survivors share their stories, those who aren’t able to speak will realize that they are not alone, that it wasn’t their fault, and that deeply entrenched misogyny isn’t simply a cultural norm we must accept.”
I wonder what Artemisia’s story says about the different ways women are and are not allowed to tell their stories in the world. “For me [the novel] is ultimately about how important and powerful it is to tell one’s story, and be heard,” McCullough says. “Which is what the #MeToo movement is also about. The more survivors share their stories, the more others feel the support to tell their own stories, or even face and name stories they’d maybe never even recognized as assault.”
Agostino Tassi isn’t the only man by whom Artemisia is victimized; in the novel nor throughout her young life. Her father, Orazio Gentileschi, is a deeply complex character — refusing to send her away to a convent when her mother died, empowering her to become an artist but taking credit for her work, exposing her to her rapist in the first place, and ultimately supporting her in her decision to prosecute Tassi but accepting the hardly-just verdict.
"The more survivors share their stories, the more others feel the support to tell their own stories, or even face and name stories they’d maybe never even recognized as assault.”
“Orazio, as I have [written] him anyway, is deeply flawed,” says McCullough. “But by the standards of the time, some of his actions were remarkable. Most widowers in his situation would have sent their daughter to a convent, or kept her as little more than a housemaid. He recognized his daughter’s talent in a time when no one nurtured talent in women. And he stood by her through a lengthy trial that probably did more harm than good to his professional prospects. But I hope that the actions Orazio takes in support of Artemisia are the barest minimum today’s male advocates would take — he believes her, he uses his privilege to take on her rapist. Good. But this all came after he spent years using his daughter, signing his name to her work, and putting her in a terrible situation when he hired an instructor known for violence and left them alone together on a regular basis.”
Whether or not Orazio’s character is able to speak to the role of male advocates in today’s Me Too movement is an equally complicated question to answer. “I give Orazio some points for standing up eventually,” McCullough says. “But what if he hadn’t waited until the violence had been done? In today’s movement, I hope male allies are listening, and centering survivors. But I also hope they’re actively calling out rape culture, examining how they’ve contributed to it, and talking to the men and boys in their lives about consent and how they relate to women, because that’s how we’ll change the culture. It doesn’t matter how many women tell their #MeToo stories if those who perpetuate rape culture aren’t listening and changing.”
While so much of Artemisia’s power lies in her decision to not only speak her truth but to maintain that truth in the face of shame, ostracism, and ultimately torture, as a fellow female artist, writer, maker, I wonder if the story of Artemisia’s rape might overshadow the story of Artemisia’s art, and what kind of problems that poses. I ask McCullough, who knows the history of Artemisia’s mark on the world much better than I, about this.
"It doesn’t matter how many women tell their #MeToo stories if those who perpetuate rape culture aren’t listening and changing."
“There is so much more to Artemisia’s story, and Artemisia’s art, than the slice I’m focusing on in Blood Water Paint,” she says. “She went on to be the first woman ever admitted into the Accademia dell’Arte del Disegno in Florence, to live and paint in the English court of Charles I, to correspond with Galileo Galilei, to teach her own daughter to paint.”
McCullough says, “I chose to tell the story of her rape — and her survival — because I don’t want to ignore that part of her story. I believe telling stories of sexual violence helps those who can’t tell their own stories to recognize and name what happened to them, which is a huge step toward healing. I hope those who read the book and are inspired by what she achieves and overcomes in this one small telling of her story will fall down a rabbit hole of researching her amazing life. Maybe one of those readers will write their own book about the next stage of her life, about whatever piece of it most inspires them.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit online.rainn.org.
Joy McCullough writes books and plays from her home in the Seattle area, where she lives with her husband and two children. She studied theater at Northwestern University, fell in love with her husband atop a Guatemalan volcano, and now spends her days surrounded by books and kids and chocolate. Blood Water Paint is her debut novel.
BLOOD WATER PAINT
Angela Leeper
BookPage. (Mar. 2018): p28.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
Full Text:
BLOOD WATER PAINT By Joy McCullough Dutton $17.99, 304 pages ISBN 9780735232112 eBook available Ages 14 and up
NOVEL-IN-VERSE
Centuries before the #MeToo movement entered the cultural landscape, there was Artemisia Gentileschi.
Born in Rome at the turn of the 17th century, Artemisia was introduced to painting by her artist father after she showed more talent than her brothers. She became a masterful Baroque artist in her own right, with paintings that reflected feminist concerns and employed an eye-opening realism during a time when art--like the entire world--was dominated by men. In her debut novel, Blood Water Paint, Joy McCullough recounts in fictionalized free verse a pivotal time in Artemisia's life.
Set in 1610, the story begins with 17-year-old Artemisia assisting her father in his painting studio. She ponders her own talent (she paints better than her father yet receives no proper credit), her role and identity as a woman, and her sexuality. She soon realizes that women are dismissed as "beauty for consumption." Artemisia's most troubling observations are confirmed when her father, in the guise of procuring a high-profile commission, hires fellow artist Agostino Tassi to tutor her. Instead of guiding Artemisia, he rapes her, and although she calls out to the house servant, Tuzia, no one comes to her aid. Despite the strong possibility of being shamed as a result, the teen seeks justice in court. Adding insult to injury, the judge requires Artemisia to undergo humiliating, invasive and tortuous tests to prove she isn't lying.
With care and precision, McCullough marks how these events shaped Artemisia's work. Perhaps because Tuzia didn't respond when she needed her, Artemisia's paintings emphasize the power of solidarity among women. Her narration, interspersed with prose from the perspective of her older self, draws inspiration from the women of the Bible, such as Judith and Susanna. Most importantly, readers see the teen's strength as a survivor of sexual assault. Ever resilient, she proclaims, "I am not a thing / to be handed / from one man / to another."
Although Artemisia lived centuries ago, her story will resonate with modern feminists.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Leeper, Angela. "BLOOD WATER PAINT." BookPage, Mar. 2018, p. 28. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A529292029/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=21821693. Accessed 12 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A529292029
McCullough, Joy. Blood Water Paint
Heather Pittman
Voice of Youth Advocates. 40.6 (Feb. 2018): p58.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC
http://www.voya.com
Full Text:
McCullough, Joy. Blood Water Paint. Dutton/Penguin Random House, March 2018. 304p. $17.99. 978-0-7352-3211-2.
5Q * 4P * S
This poetic narrative is based upon the life of Renaissance artist Artemisia Gentileschi. When her mother dies, Artemisia begins assisting her father, an artist. She grinds his paint and prepares his canvases, and, by the time she is seventeen, she is the secret talent behind his work. Her father brings in another artist, Agostino Tassi, to help Artemisia with perspective. Her relationship with Tassi quickly devolves into the gender dynamic so typical of the time in which men do what they want and women have little to no recourse against them. Artemisia, inspired by the tales her mother told her of the famous women she painted, reacted with bravery and resolve, proving to be the type of hero she so skillfully depicted on canvas.
This is a rich and complex variation of a novel-in-verse. It is tempting to recommend this style of novel to reluctant readers, but that would not be appropriate here. This is a beautiful, deep piece of historical fiction, interspersing Artemisia's story with the tales of Susanna and Judith as told by Artemisia's deceased mother. Susanna and Judith inspire Artemisia's art and her personal journey through a male-dominated world, a world in which women have no rights and no voice and are merely the property of men. This is a wonderfully written tale of a woman who actually made it into the history books, an early feminist who, today, rightfully takes the place she earned, as an influential artist of the Italian Renaissance.--Heather Pittman.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Pittman, Heather. "McCullough, Joy. Blood Water Paint." Voice of Youth Advocates, Feb. 2018, p. 58. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A529357130/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=b31e5bc3. Accessed 12 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A529357130
McCullough, Joy: BLOOD WATER PAINT
Kirkus Reviews. (Jan. 15, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
McCullough, Joy BLOOD WATER PAINT Dutton (Children's Fiction) $17.99 3, 6 ISBN: 978-0-7352-3211-2
Baroque artist and feminist icon Artemisia Gentileschi is given voice in a debut verse novel.
Only 17, Artemisia is already a more gifted painter than her feckless father. But in 17th-century Rome, the motherless girl is only grudgingly permitted to grind pigment, prepare canvas, and complete commissions under his signature. So when the charming Agostino Tassi becomes her tutor, Artemisia is entranced by the only man to take her work seriously...until he resorts to rape. At first broken in body and spirit, she draws from memories of her mother's stories of the biblical heroines Susanna and Judith the strength to endure and fight back the only way she can. Artemisia tells her story in raw and jagged blank verse, sensory, despairing, and defiant, interspersed with the restrained prose of her mother's subversive tales. Both simmer with impotent rage at the injustices of patriarchal oppression, which in the stories boils over into graphic sexual assault and bloody vengeance. While the poems (wisely) avoid explicitly depicting either Artemisia's rape or subsequent judicial torture, the searing aftermath, physical and mental, is agonizingly portrayed. Yet Artemisia's ferocious passion to express herself in paint still burns most fiercely. Unfortunately, those who lack familiarity with the historical facts or context may emerge from this fire scorched but not enlightened. McCullough's Rome is a white one. A brief note in the backmatter offers sexual-violence resources.
Nonetheless, an incandescent retelling both timeless and, alas, all too timely. (afterword) (Historical fiction. 14-adult)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"McCullough, Joy: BLOOD WATER PAINT." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Jan. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A522642982/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ab8ea34a. Accessed 12 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A522642982
Blood Water Paint
Caitlin Kling
Booklist. 114.4 (Oct. 15, 2017): p48.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Blood Water Paint. By Joy McCullough. Mar. 2018.304p. Dutton, $ 17.99 (9780735232112). Gr. 10-12.
McCullough's exquisite debut, a novel in verse, follows the heartbreaking but inspiring true story of gifted Roman painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Raised since she was 12 solely by her volatile, abusive, and less-talented artist father, Artemisia spends her days as her father's apprentice, grinding pigments and completing most of his commissions. At first, she thinks she has found solace with her charming new painting instructor, Agostino Tassi, who awakens a dormant passion in her. In carefully arranged, sophisticated I verse, McCullough deftly articulates Artemisia's growing fear of Tassi as he asserts control over and ultimately rapes her. Woven through Artemisia's poems are short prose chapters featuring Susanna and Judith, I bold ancient Roman heroines from her mother's stories. The strong females' stories guide Artemisia through her harrowing trials with Tassi, show her how to paint her truth, and eventually inspire most of her iconic paintings. With dazzling surrealist overtones, McCullough manages to vividly capture a singularly brave, resilient feminist who became an icon during a time when women had almost no agency. Her story and the stunning verse in which it is told will resonate just as strongly with readers today. A captivating and impressive book about a timeless heroine.--Caitlin Kling
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Kling, Caitlin. "Blood Water Paint." Booklist, 15 Oct. 2017, p. 48. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A512776196/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=e7b3483d. Accessed 12 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A512776196
MCCULLOUGH, Joy. Blood Water Paint
Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan
School Library Journal. 64.1 (Jan. 2018): p89.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
* MCCULLOUGH, Joy. Blood Water Paint. 304p. Dutton. Mar. 2018. Tr $17.99. ISBN 9780735232112.
Gr 8 Up-Artemisia Gentileschi, 17-year-old daughter of a mediocre Renaissance painter, assists her choleric father Orazio in his studio, mixing colors but, moreso, trying to save face for him by finishing paintings that he is incapable of completing. Remembering the stories of strong biblical women which her now-deceased mother recounted to her--stories meant to strengthen her womanly resolve in a society that valued only men--Artemisia is determined to be the painter her father will never be; thus, when her father hires Agostino Tassi (Tino) to teach her perspective, she is thrilled to have someone who can help her achieve new artistic heights. As she paints Susanna and the Elders, her relationship with Tino changes, and he finally seduces her. At first she is emboldened by his "love," but, when she realizes that he has simply used her, she is determined to bring him to court in an effort to save her honor. Using free verse for Artemisia's words and prose for her mother's stories, McCullough's beautifully crafted text will inspire upper-middle/high school readers to research the true story upon which this powerful piece of historical fiction is based. The poetry is clear and revelatory, exploring Artemisia's passion for both art and life. The expression of her intense feelings is gripping and her complexity of character make her a force to be reckoned with, both in her times and in ours. VERDICT A thrilling portrait of a woman of character who refused to be dismissed; this belongs on every YA shelf-Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, formerly at LaSalle Academy, Providence
KEY: * Excellent in relation to other titles on the same subject or In the same genre | Tr Hardcover trade binding | lib. ed. Publisher's library binding | Board Board book | pap. Paperback | e eBook original | BL Bilingual | POP Popular Picks
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Menaldi-Scanlan, Nancy. "MCCULLOUGH, Joy. Blood Water Paint." School Library Journal, Jan. 2018, p. 89. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A521876241/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=2fcb7b01. Accessed 12 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A521876241