Like many of the real-life characters in its pages, including me, the author, Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah is a survivor. It has endured several powerful hurricanes, withstood the terror of too many computer crashes to count, eluded theft, and dodged falling ceilings. The real miracle is the book not only survived these successions of turmoil but managed to steadily evolve with the addition of my artwork to the nonfiction stories. To appreciate how truly exceptional that is, please note that when I first began writing the book I did not consider myself a visual artist of any kind at all: not an amateur digital craftsman, acrylic stylist, photographer, or portraitist. I was the author of Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player and co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance beginning a new literary adventure. Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah started with the experience of an actual dream in 1989. It had to do with a group of friends banding toge

           Untitled photographed mixed-media painting by Jaanika Talts. (All rights reserved by the artist) One need not, after all, call oneself an artist in order to embrace either the beauty that roses give to the world or the genius that one’s love does. (Aberjhani) I. ENCOUNTER WITH BEAUTY When viewing a recent untitled painting by Dublin artist Jaanika Talts a strange thought came to me. It was this: Between the elegant reach of an artist’s color-stained fingers toward  her canvas and the haunted explosion of a soldier’s bullet inside his brother’s  chest, somewhere a terrified soul is seeking shelter inside the warmth of a  stranger’s voice, or an infant is squealing at the incomprehensible delight of discovering  it is alive . As I said, it was a strange thought. Talts’ painting  depicts a cluster of multi-colored roses in different stages of blossoming, nestled against the flesh of dark green leaves and framed by deep brooding shades of emerald, bron

          “The Universe said, ‘let me show your soul something            beautiful.’”                  ––Aberjhani (from ELEMENTAL, The Power of                      Illuminated Love) If emergent expressionism lends chromatic form and substance to in-between states of metamorphosis, then transformative impressionism may be described as endowing such stages of transition with metaphorical narrative. These are images by Jaanika Talts in which her literary inclinations are most apparent and they evoke a clear theme, scene, symbol, or principle. The artist’s depictions of mythology’s (as well as history’s and literature’s) Venus and Cupid , The Siren’s Dream , Ophelia , and Salome are a few of the canvases and digital art compositions which borrow cues from classic stories. What makes them uniquely engaging is her own finely-honed perspective, which seems as culturally expansive as it is aesthetically versatile. She is equally comfortable with more contemporary reference

                                         (Photographed self-portrait of the artist Jaanika Talts) Consider Jaanika Talts of Dublin, Ireland, one of those contemporary visual artists empowered by an instinct for classic literary style. As she puts it, “I mostly paint when I feel like I need to write a book (and it happens often) but painting my thoughts and stories on the canvas is so much easier for me.” Visitors to Talts’ Facebook timeline can see for themselves that the literary company she keeps is one of cross-culture diversity.  A range of quotes from such powerhouses as African-American authors Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison to Canada’s as well as Sri Lanka’s Michael Ondaatje and famed American diarist Anais Nin (1903-1977) help to introduce and interpret her generously shared art. The same literary sensibility is apparent in her 2013 calendar, Camouflages . In it, she quotes the following from English novelist D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930): “A woman unsatisfied must