(Note: the following is my fiction excerpt titled “The Artists” that was just published in Adelaide Magazine. The piece of short fiction is excerpted from my recently completed novel Pictures. Following is several paragraphs of “The Artists” followed by a link to the full story at Adelaide Magazine. Below that is an excerpt from Pictures on You Tube that I read at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration in Philadelphia. And below that is a link to some other published excerpts of Pictures.)
THE ARTISTS
By Janet Mason
(October, 1926)
After dinner, Nan and George refilled their wine glasses with a deep red Bordeaux and went to the sitting room where they waited for their spouses to join them. George put a record on his new Victor Victrola. It sat in the corner on its own end table. Its sound horn with its fluted edges resembled a large silver lily. The opening was turned toward the wall.
Nan stared at the fluted horn.
“I turned it to the wall so that the sound would echo through the apartment,” said George.
“The music sounds turbulent,” said Nan.
“That’s the point,” replied George. “Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring portrays the violence of the Russian pagan rites. A maiden dances herself to death in the sacrificial dance. Stravinsky uses Russian folk music in the score. He was sketched by Picasso, and Picasso undoubtedly influenced him. They both discovered artistic primitivism at the same time — Picasso in his cubist painting and Stravinsky in his experimental music.”
Nan cocked her head and listened to the strains of music amplified by the phonograph. She imagined violin bows slicing air. She heard cubism in the music. The bass of kettle drums sounded. She cocked her head so that one ear was turned to the sound horn as she listened intently to the high tones of the piccolo and flutes.
Despite what George had said, Nan didn’t care for the music. She didn’t say so though — out of politeness to her teacher and friend.
Emma came in and joined them, sitting down on the burnt umber leather sofa next to her husband. Wilna was still missing.
She must be in the powder room, thought Nan.
“I hear that the piece started a riot in Paris when it debuted,” continued George. “But that was because of the bad ballet dancing under the direction of Nijinsky.”
To read more in Adelaide Magazine click here.
Pictures was, in part, inspired by my discovering and reading about Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason by Joseph P. Eckhardt (WoodstockArts). I went to see the show in Woodstock at the Historical Society and here is one of the photos (Nan is on the left; Wilna is on the right:
Click here to see more photos 
from the show about Nan and Wilna at the Woodstock Historical Society.
Read other published excerpts of Pictures (and see other YouTube segments) by clicking here
Janet Mason, author 