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A Revisionist View of Personal History

Federico Fellini said: “All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.”

It’s not clear to me how many options we have when facing our past, our demons, our perceived deficiencies. We could spend years in therapy, we could cover our eyes and pretend, or perhaps we could twist and revise those things through our art.

A revisionist view is one that reinterprets the evidence, perhaps distorting the facts and bending them for other (not always nefarious) purposes. Indulging in this allows one to present the past in more favorable terms.

Acknowledging Fellini’s observation, I am returning to that data, choosing to revise it, and perhaps put it to better use. Much of this work was stimulated by original copies of 1948 and 1949 of “Children’s Playmate” magazine and incorporates pieces from its pages.

© 2017 Marsha Balian. All rights reserved.