By Carrie Crockett
Photo by Zoe Gordon
Could you name all the Greek Muses if you had to? Do you know which art form each Muse embodies?
Willow senior Tallulah Michalopoulos does. She did her research when she was completing an assignment on 2D art for Mr. Sirman’s Art of Comics class. The assignment was to design the Muses cup, one of the favorite throws of one of the city’s most beloved Carnival parades.
Tallulah’s design for Mr. Sirman was chosen to grace the 2026 Muses cups, although the early cups she was given say Tallulah is a NOCCA student. We will have to see at parade time if this error was fixed.
Tallulah’s design being chosen is all the more impressive considering that she designed it in about an hour because she missed the class when it was assigned. Eager to get her work done on time, she got out her felt-tipped pens, watercolors, and paper, and she remembered her trip to Greece over the summer and the ruins of ancient bath houses she saw. She thought about how she could use the reflection of each Muse in the bath water, blurred and indistinct, to help convey the idea that while the Muses do speak truth, they may present things in a hazy way that obscures truth.
The idea of having the Muses around water was especially fitting, considering that the nine Muses were also known as water nymphs. They are said to have been born when Pegasus, the winged horse, touched his hooves to the ground on Mt. Helicon. Four sacred springs burst forth where he moved earth, and the Muses were born.
The Muses are the very personification of knowledge of the arts, especially dance, music, poetry, literature going all the way back to Osiris and ancient Egypt. In Greece, they were:
Calliope–epic poetry with her lyre
Clio–history with her scrolls
Polyhymnia–hymn and mime with a veil or grapes
Euterpe-song and elegiac poetry with her aulos instrument or laurel wreath
Terpsichore–chorus and dance with her lyre
Erato–lyric choral poetry with her cithara instrument
Melpomene–tragedy with her tragic mask or sword
Thalia–light verse and comedy with her comic mask, ivy, or shepherd’s crook
Urania–astronomy and astrology with her globe and compass
When you catch your Muses cup this year, look for each Muse on your cup, and think about how much the ancient Greeks loved their poetry. How many forms of it are listed above? Then let the Muses inspire your own creativity. Art was considered by the ancient Greeks to help aid the forgetfulness of pain and the cessation of obligations (which is exactly what Carnival is supposed to do, incidentally). It’s fitting that the Muses cup, then, would be designed by a Willow student, with our arts-based curriculum.
But if you’re lucky enough to catch one, you might see, written on its side, that the cup was designed by a NOCCA student.
Now you know the real truth. Our very own Tallulah Michalopoulos, Willow senior, is responsible for the design of the nine Muses, each practicing her art form around a reflecting pool, that graces your Muses cup this year.
Shhh, just enjoy your throw knowing the real, unobscured truth!
