About the bookIf you have any desire to honor a departed loved one by exploring the past to tell their story, read this book first! Martha Clark Scala adored her brilliant, enigmatic father. He was a talented hobby artist whose paintings and photographs she treasured. Determined to understand him better, Martha examined her dad’s art and pored over remnants of family history for clues. Daunted by roadblocks and baffling mysteries, Martha invented strategies to tackle every challenge. Alternately saddened and delighted by her discoveries, she assembled photos, vignettes and lore into a poignant collage of words and images. Join Martha as she celebrates her father and honors his art in this poetic and tender memoir.
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My review
Assembling a Life , Claiming the Artist in My Father (and Myself), is a wonderful way to tell a life story – especially the life story of a beloved father. Martha Clark Scala uses her collage, photography, and writer skills to – which she attributes to her creative father – to gather the information and put it together to form a book. And what is most unusual and clever is that she discusses her process in this book to let her readers know how she is progressing. I especially love how she talks to and about her internal critics.
And, in the end Martha has created a book filled with the story of her father and her life with her father, many photographs of him and his family, and photographs of his beautiful paintings – even the cover photo. Martha calls this self portrait of him as a dog quintessential Geoff Clark. It is delightful.
So, as Martha Clark Scala says: “If you have any desire to honor a departed loved one by exploring the past to tell their story, read this book first.” If I do, Assembling A Life will be my Bible.
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