In Mayan Splendor
- IN MAYAN SPLENDOR - A Black ink and black color pencil drawing on 11 x 14 size coquille board. It is the frontispiece in the book, "In Mayan Splendor," a book of early verse by Frank Belknap Long, published by Arkham House in 1977.
One day while I was working on a drawing I received a phone call from an elderly woman who identified herself as "Lyda," the wife of author Frank Belknap Long who wrote this book. She called to tell me how much she adored the artwork I did for Frank's book and then went on to tell me about the book that she, herself, had written, her autobiography, and how sure she was that it would be a best-seller. Big-time publishers were offering her sinful sums of money for the printing rights, Broadway producers were calling, wanting to do the book as a musical, Hollywood agents were frantically trying to reach her. It was all so thrilling!
She then turned to the real reason for calling; she wanted me to illustrate her book and suggested we meet at the Russian Tea Room in NY to discuss it. And, If we had time we might also talk about my doing the stage sets for the broadway musical that she was sure would be made.
It was all so sad because some time ago friends had told me about how Frank and Lyda were living in poverty, how Lyda was phoning people she thought might help, asking them to meet her at a popular NY restaurant to discuss her wonderful book. There was no book! The publishers, producers, agents, they were all delusions she was suffering. She thought of herself and Frank as "bohemians," happily living in a world of art and the theatre.
Somehow I managed to tell her that regrettably, I was too busy, I just didn't have the time. I told her how happy I was for her, wished her good luck and politely said goodbye. When I went back to work I wondered why I felt so bad . . .
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