THE MAKING OF THE GOLDFISH IN THE CHANDELIER

Casie:

I adore the goldfish chandelier at the Getty and I wanted to express my affection with a very special story dedicated to it. The Goldfish in the Chandelier is a fictional story inspired by this great chandelier, the period in which it was made, and some of my own real life experiences.

I am an only child and growing up, I was very lucky that my parents’ friends were a great deal of fun and didn’t mind hanging around with me. Much of what I learned about art, books, and music I learned from them. They treated me like one of their friends, and I always tried to hold my own in conversation. The relationship between Uncle Henri and Louis is very much based on these childhood friendships.

When I was by myself–which was a good deal of time since I was an only child–I very quickly learned ways to keep myself occupied and entertained, usually creating fantastic imaginary worlds, often involving Donnie and Marie and Wonder Woman and sometimes the Six Million Dollar Man. I, like Louis, had my “soldiers” and was very loyal to them.

When I was a little older, my very first job was at Christie’s in New York, and it was the best first job for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I got to work directly with many great pieces of art, and they became like friends to me because I got to know them really well. Working one on one with works of art, you learn to study them from every angle, because looking at the back of paintings and underneath furniture can tell you heaps.

When I go to a museum, I drift toward a few works of art that I really like, but to this day I am frustrated because I can’t touch any of the pieces! Still they are like friends to me, and like imaginary friends, I like to make up stories about them, just like I did with the goldfish chandelier.

While I was writing the story, I looked at a lot of books for inspiration so that I could have a better understanding of the period, places, and people. I looked at biographies of craftsmen working in and around Paris in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century. Research about rich and eccentric patrons and their lavish houses and garden pavilions helped me conceive of the idea of Madame Marie’s quirky commission. Because of the shape of the chandelier, I wanted to know more about the history of the Montgolfier Brothers, and their eighteenth-century flights. I am really crazy about the griffins in the chandelier, and while reading up about them, I came across the story of Alexander the Great’s Celestial Journey, and thought both he and the Montgolfiers would be great fun to work into the story.

I wrote a fictional story about a real work of art because I wanted people young and old to not only connect with the object, but also really think about how important imagination is, not just where art is concerned, but in every aspect of their lives. Altogether, it took about a year and a half to research and write the story. I had a lot of great friends who read the manuscript and provided very useful feedback, and after I submitted it to the Getty in early 2008, it went through a few more revisions. I was so happy when I learned the Getty gave the book project a green light, and over the moon when I learned that Gary agreed to illustrate it. One of the very best things about writing a children’s book is that you get to see the characters you create come to life through the illustrations, and Gary’s were better than I ever dreamed possible.