A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids - Hardcover

Datz, Margot

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582701601 ISBN 13: 9781582701608

Publisher: Atria Books/Beyond Words, 2008

Synopsis

In A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids, artist Margot Datz sees the she-nymph within, struggling to emerge, and in a swirl of whimsical and witty wisdom, lovingly offers tips for today's world of dating, mating, and beyond.

The landlocked mermaid is a symbol of the contemporary woman, trapped in a paradoxical dilemma of being part worldly and domesticated, part untamable and intuitive.

Margot's beautifully painted, contemporary mermaids are caught in the nets of their own comical dilemmas, circling the heart's fishbowl of romantic longings and in the murky depths of deep emotion. Whether it's the value of cultivating an inner water garden or coping with crow's feet and fish tails, Margot offers advice and an enchanting way of hydrating your weary mermaid soul.

Coy, sweetly mischievous, and a pinch sagacious, this is a book that, like a good glass of wine, can be enjoyed multiple times, sipped on, or downed in one reading.

About this title

About the Author:

Margot Datz is an in-demand painter, illustrator, and mural artist based in Martha's Vineyard. Her work has appeared in House and Gardens, Home Magazine, InStyle, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Publishers Weekly, The Boston Globe, Newsweek, and many regional publications, as well as CNN and NPR's "All Things Considered." Dustin Hoffman bought her first piece of art. Other clients include Diane Sawyer, Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, and Carly Simon. Datz has maintained a close creative affiliation with Carly Simon, designing and moralizing her nightclub Hot Tin Roof and her homes, and illustrating four of her children's books, with Jacqueline Onnassis as editor.

Datz began her career as a sculptress and exhibited regularly in one-woman and group shows in Manhattan, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and Martha's Vineyard. In 1978 she established Margot Datz Designs, specializing in murals and architectural trompe l'oeil, decorative painting, and interior design. She has created murals for a number of children's hospitals, dozens of prominent businesses, hundreds of homes, and the Martha's Vineyard Steamship Authority Ferry Terminal, which receives over one million tourists and travelers annually. Datz also creates original paintings, exhibits annually, and is a well-established island painter.

Enamored and bemused by the New England region, Datz developed her own indigenous iconography based on lighthouses, sailors, fishermen, mermaids, and their interplay with the great blue sea. Her archetypal approach to her surroundings addresses humorously and compassionately contemporary living and loving dilemmas as modern folk.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Excerpted from the introduction

What drove us from our watery sanctuary onto dry land? Like other sea life, mermaids were evolving too. And mermen had become quite rare, private, and in great demand. When mermaids tried to expand their mating options, enticing men into their aquatic territory, the poor fellows had a tendency to sink, rendering them, sadly, rather dead. So we mermaids abandoned our natural psychic habitat to seek mates on shore, and we have been like fish out of water ever since.

We've adapted admirably to our landlocked circumstances, mastering most of the skills of landfolk, and managing, with much effort, to "fit in." But the mermaid within longs to slip on her tail from time to time and vanish beneath the curl of a breaker, leaving behind her unwashed dishes. We yearn to be fully immersed in the weightless world of our free spirit's true home, where our playful natures return to us with each sweep of our fantails, and protocol is silenced by a far more joyful call of the sea. We want to be refreshed, to remember, to find our way back to the part of us that is mostly ocean.

Some women have forgotten their primal origins and have donned the way of man, adjusting to civilization's formalities and institutions. Others recall their nature but feel alone and odd, veiling their restlessness and suppressing their impulses. Sighs wash over them like the lapping shores. There are, however, an increasing number of mermaids that are growing their tails back, and they know how to use them!

About this edition

• Publisher: Atria Books/Beyond Words
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1582701601
• ISBN 13: 9781582701608
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 72