Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 22, 1994 TAG: 9403220160
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
Blacksburg artist Martha Dillard says she did both.
But she eventually came down on the side of Flannery fandom, as shown by her exhibit of paintings on display this month at DiscoveryWorks, a children's museum, based on O'Connor's stories.
Dillard will talk with 20 students from Auburn High School at the museum from 9 to 11 a.m. today about O'Connor's personal development, belief systems and the time in which she lived, 1925 to 1964.
The students will have read some of O'Connor's stories before the program. Dillard insists that people in her Flannery O'Connor discussion groups read some of the author's work first.
She has given similar programs at James Madison University, Davidson College and elsewhere, and will be a participant next month at a Flannery O'Connor symposium at Georgia College where O'Connor was a student.
But Dillard's enthusiasm for O'Connor was by no means instantaneous.
``It really started because I heard a sermon that used one of her stories as an illustration,'' Dillard recalled. The story was ``Revelation,'' and the sermon prompted Dillard to buy a complete volume of O'Connor's short stories.
She tried it, didn't care for it, and put it on her bookshelf where it sat untouched for several years.
It was when she was looking for poetry for some abstract art inspiration that she picked it up again about three years ago. This time, it seemed just right for what she was seeking and she read it through ``totally forgetting that I hated her stories. ... I just gobbled this book up, once I got started on it.''
O'Connor's stories are not light reading, dealing often with death or the possibility of redemption. O'Connor's Catholicism was probably as important to her work as being a Southerner, Dillard found, ``plus she had this wit, just rapier-sharp.''
What Dillard did not know at the time was that O'Connor also had an art connection.
``She painted a number of pictures, although she claimed to have done so only to fill the empty walls of the home she shared with her mother ... and they're quite good,'' Dillard said. ``In college, she had been the cartoonist for the college annual.''
Dillard went beyond just reading O'Connor's stories before she began doing paintings based on her interpretations of them. She studied the writer's background and discussed her with literary friends more familiar with her.
``I was completely captivated by her wonderful visual imagery. ... I couldn't have painted them dull,'' she said. ``So I am now fairly well-versed in Flannery O'Connor.''
When a Blacksburg reading group invited her to speak on O'Connor, Dillard invited its members to move their meeting place to her home where her paintings from O'Connor stories could be seen. Those are the paintings now on exhibit at DiscoveryWorks on the second floor of the Norwood Building through March 26.
Dillard said she is committed to exhibiting them once more, in Christiansburg during June, and plans no further displays. People interested in seeing them might want to do so now. Also on display at DiscoveryWorks is an exhibit titled ``Good Impressions,'' with various kinds of printing implements on display. Some of the youngsters taking classes at the museum have made their own books of their own writings and illustrations.
DiscoveryWorks and its previous incarnation, Council for Community Enrichment, has been in existence for six years and located in the Norwood Building for the past two years. It serves young people from throughout the New River Valley, although Dillard's program March 22 is the first of its type offered for high school students.
Further information on the museum and its programs is available by writing DiscoveryWorks, 1115 Norwood St., Radford, Va. 24141, or calling 633-2233.
by CNB