Dances in Two Worlds: A Writer-Artist’s Backstory

Dances in Two Worlds is a writer-artist's backstory composed of two parallel narratives, one verbal and one visual. The paintings do not illustrate the text; the writing does not interpret the paintings. However, the interplay between word and image results in a multi-faceted, single composition that describes author Thordis Simonsen's rich personal odyssey.

In the book's first essay, "Fireflies," Thordis recollects a summer activity familiar to anyone who grew up in the Mid-west--collecting lightning bugs in a jar.
The jar Thordis evokes is a metaphor for the light trapped in each of us. Every painting and essay in this luminous memoir represents a firefly released from that jar.

Radiant and intimate, Dances in Two Worlds is both a testimony to this writer-artist's irrepressible creative spirit and a catalyst for the reader-viewer's own bold adventures in life and in art.
(from Front Cover)