They say that a picture can paint a thousand words. But an artist’s life journey sometimes cannot be summed up by the number of portraits and still-life paintings he or she has done.

Dorothy Slikker’s narrative paints a vivid portrait of the artist, author, and the woman. Dorothy Slikker’s Looking Back through the Life of the Master Artist is a light yet heart-warming read.

Looking back Through the Life of the Master Artist is the third book by Dorothy Slikker. It chronicles Dorothy’s childhood, college, and her successful career as a painter.

In this book, Dorothy Slikker attempts to retrace her family history and her own humble beginnings. Dorothy’s story begins with the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma that took place in the 1930s. Her ancestors, like many other families whose farms turned barren, went on to search for the proverbial green pastures. Dorothy spent most of her teenage years with her grandparents. She went to college and excelled in the field of art. Dorothy Slikker went on to become an international artist. She has won multiple art awards and attended numerous national and international art exhibits.

Among Dorothy Slikker’s books, Looking Back…is the most personal. Slikker departs from her comfort zone of writing art. Some might fault that the title is somewhat lengthy and does not fall perfectly with the content. The books does not talk mainly on Slikker’s journey toward becoming a celebrated painter. It’s lacking the details that would paint Slikker as person who deals with canvass, oil paints, acrylic, and sits in front of an easel most of her waking hours. There lies a minor setback.

We can forgive Dorothy Slikker for her Kerouac style of writing. There is beauty in not paying so much attention to academic writing or whatever structured style that professional writers possess. There is genuine humility yet there is also pride in her words. Her spontaneity is only matched by her honesty though some might categorized Slikker’s work as naïve narrative. Hers is a relentless drive to share her family’s story- not so much her own- but of the lives that made her own meaningful and worthy of narration.

Overall, Looking Back through the Life of the Master Artist is a product of a firm resolve of a non-literati to tell her own narrative. There are instances where paragraphs seem endless, at times certain sections tend to pull readers away from what is normally expected. But because this is something that actually happened and is being told to us in first person perspective, disinterestedness somehow wanes easily.

ReadersMagnet Review recommends this book to those who are interested in reading lives of ordinary men achieving extraordinary feats. Looking Back is for those who want an easy read.

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