Each year the Omaha Lit Fest includes an art show, relating to literary themes. This year was, "'Possessions: Literary characters and the things they carried.' This exhibit will feature artists’ interpretations of literary artifacts, in a variety of media—namely: the props, objects, fashions, food, and jewelry of famous literary characters. (Think Hester Prynn’s scarlet letter; Mrs. Dalloway’s flowers; Sherlock Holmes’ pipe; Willy Wonka’s golden ticket; Proust’s madeleines.)" Wanda Ewing, who has an illustration from her "Pin-Up Girls" series forthcoming in the December issue of the Paris Review, donated a print based on The Yellow Wallpaper. Other works included a sculpture of an artificial leg inspired by David Foster Wallace's The Broom of the System, and a painting featuring the line "Down came the cascade," so crucial to The Gift of the Magi. I bought the pictured necklace, made by artist Amy Mather, inspired by a passage in One Hundred Years of Solitude: When it was opened by the giant, the chest gave off a glacial exhalation. Inside there was only an enormous, transparent block with infinite internal needles in which the light of the sunset was broken into colored stars. Disconcerted, knowing that the children were waiting for an immediate explanation, Jose Arcadio Buendia ventured a murmur: "It's the largest diamond in the world." "No," the gypsy countered. "It's ice."
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