Virginia Museum of Fine Arts publishes VCU students' stories

By Tom Gresham

For a game group of Virginia Commonwealth University graduate creative writing students, a picture was worth several thousand words.

“The Beholder,” a series of six short stories authored by VCU students in a novel workshop class, has been published online at the Web site of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Each of the stories uses “Portrait of Comte de Vaudreuil,” a 1784 painting by Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun, as its inspiration. The portrait, which is included in the permanent collection at the VMFA, plays varying roles of significance in the stories, which offer a diverse range of plots, characters and settings.

Susann Cokal, Ph.D., assistant professor of English at VCU, teaches the novel workshop class. She said the students chose to target a unifying theme for the stories – how to represent someone you love – but they maintained considerable leeway in the ways they pursued the theme and integrated the painting into their individual works. The result, she said, was a series of stories that stood on their own while working as chapters in a larger work.

The authors of the chapters are Lauren Maas (Chapter I, set in 1784); Kelsey Trom (Chapter II, set in 1793); Brian Castleberry (Chapter III, set in 1833); Andrew Blossom (Chapter IV, set in 1900); Yazmina Beverly (Chapter V, set in 1965); and Courtney Fenner (Chapter VI, set in 2026).

Preparation for the project included a behind-the-scenes tour at the VMFA for the students. (“Portrait of Comte de Vaudreuil” is not currently on display at the museum). Sandy Rusak, director of education and outreach at VMFA, worked with Cokal and the students on the project.

“The Beholder” was made possible by FRAME, the French Regional and American Museum Exchange, and a grant from the Annenberg Foundation. The Web site for FRAME includes a link to “The Beholder,” further aiding the exposure of the young writers.

“The Beholder” can be found at http://www.vmfa.museum/beholder.html.