New Deal Museum
9th Annual New Deal Writing Competition
GVCA is excited to announce the ninth annual New Deal Writing Competition! This competition challenges writers to use a painting chosen by the staff at GVCA as inspiration for a short story. This year’s painting is “Playtime” by Fred Ross.
Title:Playtime Artist: Fred Ross
In subject matter if not in style, there are resemblances between this painting and Georges Seurat’s famous “Grande Jutte-1884”, but even more so William Blake’s “The Echoing Green.” The spirit of the piece seems exuberant as the painting’s colored balloons, due perhaps to its “American” setting and youthful subjects. A gently sloping parkland ends alongside a pond occupied by a pair of swans, delighting a young child tended by a watchful nurse. Boys and girls of all ages manifest their play at different stages of childhood, save for two pensive young women: one looks out across the water toward adulthood, the other muses upon the hill.
