By Emily Keller
While some stories lose their relevance as years go by, others resonate for centuries. The Lover’s Path, a novel by Brooklyn-based illustrator, designer and feminist author Kris Waldherr, is one of those stories. Based in Venice, Italy in the 16th century, the story chronicles the forbidden love between Filamena Ziani – a sixteen-year-old orphan raised by her older sister, Tullia, who is a courtesan – and a man she meets through her passion for music, which also helps her cope with her sister’s strict rule. “The path towards love is a path towards wisdom and self actualization,” said Waldherr, and the novel’s message is to follow the lover’s path wherever it leads: “the lover” refers to anyone, and the love can be romantic, parental or artistic. “If you love somebody with a very open heart it takes you places you don’t expect.” For Waldherr, her artistic path landed her in Brooklyn. The Bergen County native moved to New York to attend the School of Visual Arts on a full scholarship, and has since spent four years in Cobble Hill, seven or eight years in Park Slope, and five years in Kensington, where she now lives with her husband, anthropologist Thomas Ross Miller, and their 10-month-old daughter, Thea Delphine, who she calls “our little goddess.” “The most important thing here is the sense of community. There’s so many wonderful things…that are very nurturing to the creative spirit, like going to all the coffee shops,” gardens, and of course, Prospect Park. “All of Brooklyn is incredibly romantic.” She even met her husband in a true Brooklyn love story. “I met him on the F train going towards Brooklyn. He was reading a book about opera. It was a very sort of serendipitous thing. Only in Brooklyn, as they say.” In The Lover’s Path, Filamena meets her lover, Angelo, through serendipity as well, when he is an audience member at a performance she sings in. Filamena’s derivation of power through music – rather than through sexuality – is a part of what makes the novel a feminist one. Another is that it tells the interweaving stories of female main characters struggling to better their lives in a society with limited choices, and their male counterparts are intentionally less developed as characters. Like Filamena, the author is also a musician. Waldherr practices cello weekly with the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra – a group of about 70 professionals, music teachers and amateurs – and performs at least six times a year at St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn Heights. However, Waldherr says she has no professional aspirations as a cellist, and plays to relax. The cleansing power of music is one component of Waldherr’s fairy tale – or fiabla – that remains true through the centuries, although some of its details trap it in time. “I think the thing that is really timeless about it is the emotional intensity,” she said, although the 16th century was “a very different world. It was very brutal and passionate.” The social power that Tullia had as a courtesan – a prostitute with high social rank – would be less in today’s society, and was unusual even for her time. “I think most of them lived lives of quiet desperation,” said the author. Allegories, Waldherr said, are important to tell because they “[Allow] people to have a little distance from their own [lives] and recognize what’s going on,” however words alone can never completely re-create a tale. “That’s the sad frustration with being any kind of artist. You struggle to express these things… but it’s not the same as being there.” The participatory nature of the 135-page hardcover book, published by Harry N. Abrams Books, is an attempt to transcend that limitation. The book is elaborately designed and illustrated with gold edges, removable handwritten letters, colorful maps, and decorated borders – as books created during the Renaissance were – and packed with original artworks by Waldherr. “I just wanted to create something that hadn’t really been done before,” she said. It is a product of ten years of intermittent work, during which time the author pursued other projects and had her first baby. “It was incredibly fun, incredibly rich, and I’m just glad it’s out there,” she said. Originally, the book that is primarily based on one with the same name (La Via dell’Amante in Italian), written in 1543 by the real Filamena Ziani, was intended to be a compilation of love stories from the Italian Renaissance, but those stories inspired the author’s first novel instead. “I didn’t realize it was a novel until I started working with my literary agent and she said, ‘you have a novel here,’” the author said. Although she does not speak Italian, Waldherr was strongly influenced by two trips to Venice. “My first trip to Venice inspired the book,” she said about a 1990 visit that lasted a few weeks. “It was incredibly exciting. I just knew I had to write a book with Venice as a [background].” The narrow streets, she said, are hard to follow, which she finds charming. “[Venice] essentially hasn’t changed that much since the Renaissance. You constantly get lost…it’s very disorienting, but in a good way. It really transforms you.” The author traveled to Venice for the second time after writing her final draft, to make sure her details were correct and to visit museums. However, there was one museum she did not visit – the Museo di Palazzo Filomela, introduced in the book’s prelude as the museum from which many of its works of art are adapted or reproduced. But the museum is part of the novel – it is fiction. “It’s my imagination,” explained the author. “There is no Museo di Palazzo Filomela.” Waldherr’s mythological imagination goes back as long as she can recall. “I can remember being a little girl and being fascinated by princesses, and then when I learned about goddesses I thought: this is better, you don’t have to wait to be rescued. I think they’re…much better role model[s] than Barbie.” Waldherr is also the author and creator of works including The Goddess Tarot, Sacred Animals, and Persephone and the Pomegranate. Her illustrations have been published as greeting cards, tarot cards, book covers, and in magazines, and her art has been exhibited in galleries and museums nationwide. For more information visit Waldherr’s website: www.artandwords.com.
