The Rambling Writer: Thor’s Minoan Fresco Reproductions

After our latest trip to Crete and other Greek islands, where Thor and I admired the restorations of beautiful Minoan frescoes, Thor decided to paint reproductions of some of our favorites.

While I’ve been on a different kind of journey over the past six months, undergoing chemotherapy and radiation for a recurrence of my never-smoker lung cancer, I wasn’t able to create new original blog posts here, so I published reruns of our latest trip to Crete and other Greek islands (pre-pandemic). Last week’s episode featured Minoan frescoes, so I thought it was time to show off the wonderful reproductions that Thor painted on the walls of his shop as his “pandemic project.”

Here’s the link to that blog post, explaining some of the original frescoes:

A Rambling Writer Rerun: Crete, part 18: Minoan Frescoes

Thor worked out a system in his shop at our former home, projecting images of the restored frescoes on sections of the plasterboard walls, where he outlined the figures. Then he experimented with paints and colors to reproduce the images, learning techniques as he went along.

The “Bull Leaper” fresco is his favorite of his paintings. The two dancer/athletes with white skin are female, while the red-colored leaper is male. (See last week’s post for more information about this Minoan activity.)

My favorite is the dolphin fresco from the queen’s chambers in ancient Knossos on Crete.

Thor dedicated the blue monkeys to our friend, the poet Bruce Beasley, who dreams of monkeys.

The griffin is one of a pair in the throne room at ancient Knossos on Crete.

Part of a larger fresco of swallows and landscape at Akrotiri on Thera (Santorini).

These beautiful Oryx are also from akrotiri.

The actual restored fresco that we saw in the Athens Museum of Archaeology:

When Thor finished this final reproduction of a Minoan lady in her garden, we decided to call her Ariadne, for the daughter of King Minos, princess and possibly priestess of the labyrinth. My fascination with the labyrinth lore, which deepened during my hippie backpacking trip around Crete many years ago, led eventually to my novel THE ARIADNE CONNECTION.

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You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s Greek islands novel  from Book View Café is available in print and ebook: The Ariadne Connection. “Technology triggers a deadly new plague. Can a healer find the cure?”  The novel has received the Chanticleer Global Thriller Grand Prize and the Cygnus Award for Speculative Fiction. Sara is at work on the sequel, The Ariadne Disconnect. Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com