There are countless examples of writers using paintings or other visual art as inspiration to create entirely new work. Think "Girl with a Pearl Earring," "The Da Vinci Code," or even "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats. This is what the award-winning writer Donna Baier Stein did when she decided to write a new collection of short stories based on lithographs by iconic American artist Thomas Hart Benton. The issues that Benton dealt with and depicted throughout the Great Depression and afterward still resonate today. We recently sat down with Stein to talk about her book -- titled "Scenes from the Heartland" -- and about the certain Benton piece that initiated the whole project.
Hosted by Jeff Martin with Philbrook Museum of Art and produced by Scott Gregory with Public Radio Tulsa.
