City of Natchez and the Lanfear Family

Located on the Mississippi River, some 90 miles southwest of Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, and 85 miles north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the city of Natchez is named for the Natchez tribe of Native Americans who lived in the vicinity through the arrival of Europeans in the eighteenth century.

Established by French colonists in 1716, Natchez is one of the oldest and most important European settlements in the lower Mississippi River Valley, and served as the capital of the Mississippi Territory and then the state of Mississippi. It predates Jackson, which replaced Natchez as the capital in 1822, by more than a century. The strategic location of Natchez, on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, ensured that it would become a pivotal center of trade, commerce, and the interchange of Native American, European, and African-American cultures in the region for the first two centuries of its existence. In U. S. history, it is recognized particularly for its role in the development of the Old Southwest during the first half of the nineteenth century. It was the southern terminus of the historic Natchez Trace, which provided many pilots of flatboats and keelboats a road back to their homes in the Ohio River Valley after unloading their cargo in the city.

The Lanfear family immigrated to the territory of New Orleans from France as the French began to settle along the Mississippi river.  Dominic's ancestors moved up the river and settled in Natchez, Mississippi which was the home of several Indian Nations including the Natchez Indians and the Choctaw Nation.  Skirmishes and wars broke out as the French attempted to seize the land and build their plantations to grow indigo, cotton and tobacco.  It was a dangerous and hard time with the slaughter of many.

As the Civil War grips the nation, our story begins in the peaceful community of Natchez where life seems to be normal but a current of uneasiness is coming to the surface as the living and the dead clash in an attempt to lift a family curse.  Mirisa finds herself absorbed into the past as she deals with the isolation of living on the Lanfear plantation.

The Violin and Old English Roses

I am a sculpture glass artist...I am!  I work on a small torch designed for glass artists and I work with 6-8 mm glass rods in the greatest colors.  I began my adventure in glass in 2005 and though it was a hobby for many years, it is now a wonderful expansion of my love for music, for flowers and for romance.  I am the ultimate romantic who was plucked from the days of yesteryear and dropped into a fast moving, over achieving world where art has to work hard to rise to consciousness.

The above piece is a 1901 violin that I found at a 'barn sale'.  It is normal size, a little rough around the edges and will never again hear the sound of it's own strings.  I have created Old English Roses in several colors of pink glass rods from light pink to dark purple pink.  It talks secretly of romance, the Waltz on a summer night when the roses bloom and the jasmine dances in the moonlight.  It is these things that make our hearts soar and our belief in possibilities escape the world.

Writing is my inner spirit dancing with the memories of past lives.  Like with my glass, I don't plan a story I just write it down as it comes back in my memories.  Romance is love bursting quietly and softly through the veil of those memories.  Romance is about those dreams we hope for and those who fulfill the dreams.   Intertwined in my world are the words, the music and the flower gardens and inspire each day with possibilities. 

The Visitor was always written while I was wearing my Ipod with the inspiration of Chris Isaac who does love and pain so beautifully and the Eagles, Bob Seger and other musicians from my early days but mostly I love romantic music without words.  It's all a circle as I continue to create art and write the next chapter of The Visitor.