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Monterey County Herald
Fresh art: Author J.W. Winslow gets organic in Big Sur
By LISA CRAWFORD WATSON
Herald Correspondent
Updated: 05/29/2009 08:09:48 AM PDT
Dyanna Falconer is on a roll when she sells her book to Hollywood and falls in love with a hot movie star. But she misses her home in Big Sur, and longs to paint and write and live her life on the ocean with the unforgettable characters that inhabit the wild coast." |
RJ.W. Winslow, a native Californian, also is an artist and writer, who hails from Los Angeles but thrives on the Central Coast. Whether or not she and Falconer have ever met is debatable, as open to interpretation as the idea that they might be one and the same. Yet when Winslow conceived Falconer for her new book, "Jasmine Dogs, Mystic Adventures in Big Sur," she never actually admitted to an autobiographical reference. Such an assumption might have robbed her readers from finding themselves in the protagonist.
But there are those who say there is no such thing as fiction.
Winslow does call the book a work of fiction, this newly released 328-page ride through the wilds of her imagination and the mysteries of the culture and community of Big Sur, a place inhabited by clans united by legend, where myth is more accurate than metaphor."
"I've had this story in my head, in one version or another, for a long time," she said. "I began developing this character after I became involved in Big Sur while writing 'Wild Bird,' the story of the late conservationist Margaret Owings. Through my research, I went underground and talked with people you might never imagine are there."
"Jasmine Dogs" is the first
"green" release by Fresh Art, a publishing company Winslow revived once she recognized the need to create eco-friendly books and decided to do something about it. This novel, composed entirely from recycled and organic materials, including recycled cover and page stock, soy ink, linseed binding glue and the promise of good energy, is the hallmark of what Winslow intends to produce through Fresh Art.
"This planet needs people to commit to making a difference and do what they say they'r e going to do," said Winslow. "It starts with one person. I wanted to publish a beautiful, eco-friendly book that is a good read and doesn't present a burden to the environment."
Through Fresh Art, Winslow wants to work with local talent and publish the work of young and emerging writers from the area, to anchor them on the Central Coast stage and release their work into the world theater.
"The fact that no one on the East Coast thinks we can write out here," she said, "or, if we do, that it's going to be about fruits and nuts motivates me to make a difference, to bring 'local' to a larger audience."
For "Jasmine Dogs," Winslow worked with Dan Christensen, owner of Cypress Press in Monterey, whose integrity and beautiful work, she says, inspired her. She also commissioned Big Sur native Erin Lee Gafill, an accomplished artist and writer, to create the original cover art for her novel.
The painting itself, in vivid oils on canvas, tells its own story through the evocative shapes and shades of an impossible place that really does exist for those who find it. Legend says the secret to finding Big Sur is knowing you're already there. Gafill's insight and expression create a prologue to the book, inviting readers to venture inside in search of context.
"So many people come to Big Sur," said Gafill, "and for each, their experience becomes a unique and special love affair. J.W. Winslow has really experienced that over the years in coming down here to spend time, interview people and form her sense of place. Her book is a quick, compelling romp through one woman's experience of Big Sur.
"I was really flattered that, of all the artists she imagined working with, she was drawn to my art. The body of work I had been doing was not so site specific, but more of an emotional, spiritual reaction to living on the coast, which works with her story. I was exploring the feeling of awakening here, of getting up in the morning when you beat the sun out onto the road. You can see it coming, but it hasn't crested the mountain yet; it's an excitement and anticipation, that predawn moment of awakening."
Winslow published "Sensual Indigo" through Fresh Art in 1998, a compilation of her talents, of painting and poetry that bleeds into a short story. The book records the journal of protagonist Paris Ryder, as told in two parables that are illustrated to the point of abstraction. Or clarity.
In her new book, says Winslow, Dyanna Falconer is warned about the Jasmine Dogs by a rough Esalen Indian mystic, but plunges ahead with a big romance and the consequences of her double life.
"In this book," said Gafill, "J.W. really grabbed the energy and spiritual awakening Big Sur can offer someone coming from more of an L.A. life, if they allow the self to be transformed by it. She tells a very eventful and compassionate story through this woman's journey, and takes the reader on a very quick, intense ride on her adventure. It is the perfect book to buy if you are coming down to camp in the woods of Big Sur or for a quick summer read if you want to go on a ride with somebody." The sequel is already in the works.
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If you go
To purchase "Jasmine Dogs" for $19.95, visit www.jwwinslow.com or attend one of Winslow's upcoming book-launch events:
•What: Program and book signing with J.W. Winslow and artist Erin Lee Gafill; theme music by Tom Ayers
•When: Friday, June 5, 5-7p.m.
•Where: Carmel Bay Company, southwest Corner of Ocean and Lincoln, Carmel
•Information: 624-3868
•What: Live videotaping of interview with J.W. Winslow, Erin Lee Gafill, Dan Christensen; wine by Ventana Vineyards
•When: Saturday, June 13, 1-4 p.m.
•Where: Wave Street Studios, 774 Wave St., Monterey
•Information: 655-2010
•What: Program and book signing with J.W. Winslow and Erin Lee Gafill; theme music by Tom Ayers
•When: Tuesday, June 23, 12:30-3:30 p.m.
•Where: Nepenthe Phoenix Shop, Highway 1, Big Sur
•Information: 667-2345 |
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