Harry's Lisa: me?

I have been called many things in nine years of column writing. Some of them have been very nice; some not so much. Certain labels have been fair and accurate; others, puzzling misidentifications.

Among all, Mr. Harrison Baker's takes top prize for originality. He called me Mona Lisa.

Harry was at the Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane ("the MAC") with his family recently, touring their well-reviewed Leonardo da Vinci exhibition. When he later saw my column photo in The Press, the Ponderosa Elementary third-grader exclaimed, "Look! It's a da Vinci!"

Thank you, Harry; she may not be a supermodel, but I'm still smiling.

Young Harry also gave the MAC exhibit two thumbs up. "Leonardo Da Vinci: Man - Inventor - Genius" includes 23 replicated artistic masterpieces and 60 invention models. Made to scale and produced by an Italian artisan family who has been building the inventions to da Vinci specifications for two centuries, the models are interactive machines from his four codices: flight, civil machines, hydraulics/engineering, and military machines. The craftsmanship and materials are represented exactly as they were in the 15th century.

The inventions and made-to-scale replicas of all da Vinci's masterpiece paintings - he completed fewer than 30 - don't complete the picture of this man's extraordinary and prolific life. He also composed music and briefly joined Cesare Borgia's (Pope Alexander VI's son, with whom da Vinci became close) military campaign as an engineer and military architect. He loved, studied, and wrote about nature. The exhibit includes audio and video describing da Vinci's life.

Getting back to his Lisa, her mystery reaches beyond her identity, which has remained elusive despite centuries of research. Last year historians and art experts found tiny letters and numbers in the pupils of her original portrait under high-resolution magnification, something Dan Brown undoubtedly would have loved to have known pre-publication. Is this a real life da Vinci code?

"The light, that lies in woman's eyes, has been my heart's undoing." - Thomas More

The exhibit travels throughout North America. It may be seen at the MAC Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (1st & 2nd Fridays until 8 p.m.) and closes on Labor Day, Sept. 5. More information is at Northwestmuseum.org or (509) 456-3931.

Sholeh Patrick, a.k.a. Harry's Lisa, is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her with other likenesses at [email protected]