Walter Anderson

"We all get what we want. Each painter that paints a picture puts into it exactly what he wants. If he fails, it is because he did not want enough. Teach people to want the right things and they will get them. Teach them to want the wrong things and they will be ruined." -- Walter Inglis Anderson

While I was on the coast, I went over to Ocean Springs. I love Ocean Springs, and with Natchez, it's one of the only two other places in the state that I'd want to live. It has its ugly modern highway aspects, but with a simple turn toward the gulf's waters, it becomes old, preserved, and reflective.

Ocean Springs houses a museum containing the work of Walter Anderson. He was an amazing artist whom I won't attempt to biographize (is that a word?) here. Go see the website to learn more about him. The museum has a rotating collection of his work, and a portion of the cabin in which he lived when he was at home called "The Little Room". The walls and ceiling reflect the path of the sun across the room and woven into that are flowers, trees, animals, and birds. To see it all, one needs to sit in the middle of the floor and just absorb.

The museum also has one of my favorite sculptures in the world. Anderson was a productive artist in many media, including wood and ceramic arts. My favorite sculpture is called "The Swimmer" and was crafted, if I remember correctly, from a driftwood log. The color is a beautiful burnished brown, and the lines are so pure. It is, of course, one of those things you're not supposed to touch. I always yearn to run my hands across it, to feel the smoothness of it, to feel the grace and the movement. I don't know a lot of arty terms, that not having been a field I've ever studied formally, but the figure, although stylized, seems to have been lifted whole from the warm waters of the gulf instead of hewn from wood.

All his art is like that. He had what he referred to as his "public art", consisting of fabulous murals and linoleum block prints. I have several of the reprintings of the block prints all over the house. Some of his descendants started the company Realizations to make his public art available. You can see their stuff here.

He also had his "private art," which mostly consisted of watercolors. He spent extended periods of time living as naturally as possible, mostly without manmade shelter, on Horn Island in the MS Gulf. While he was there, he recorded every aspect of the natural world with his water colors. He was seeking the truth of it, the beauty of it. There is a power in his works that stuns. I wish I could see like he saw. When I stand and look at one of his watercolors, I can feel something inside me lift. I always think of a pelican spreading her wings and rising swiftly to the sun.

Whenever I go to the coast, I always try to go to his museum. This time, with the teacher conference being in Biloxi, there were many people in it. I like it better when I'm the only person there and I can walk around and stare without any other voice intruding. Sometimes, when it's quiet enough, I think I can almost feel his presence there.

Casinos on the Coast

No quote tonight.

I just returned from a week-long conference on the coast. It's changed a lot since I was a little kid and used to go down with my parents every summer for our vacation.

When I was young, the tackiest things there were the gift shops selling dolls made of shells, plastic snowglobes, and t-shirts saying, "My folks went to the Gulf Coast and all I got was this shirt." I remember there being seemingly hundreds of goofy golf courses, water slides, and go cart places. And then there was all that gorgeous sand. The water was always silty; being that close to the mouth of the Mississippi, I guess that's to be expected. The scariest thing I remember seeing was a dead manta ray drifting in the tide.

This time, things were cleaner, but a lot of the kitschy charm was gone. In place of the water slides and seafood shacks were slick, towering casinos. They cluster together in twos and threes as if they're afraid to stand on their own.

I wound up staying in one for the conference. I must say that I wasn't terribly impressed. The room was neither better nor worse than a Holiday Inn. The restaurants weren't fabulous, just expensive. I went to eat sushi and was so disappointed, I almost couldn't finish the meal. No green tea, no ume-shu, and no real sushi chef. To get to the restaurants, you had to navigate your way through a smoke-filled forest of slot machines that smelled horribly of spilt whiskey and was peopled with aging zombies who mechanically inserted credits or bills and pushed the buttons.

The materials that had been used were good. The lights and the sounds tried to make it festive. I just can't get over how few people I saw there who seemed to be having a good time. Most of them were mesmerized by the flashing lights of the machine in front of them. I did not see a single person win the entire time I was there, and heard almost no laugher or even conversation on the game floor.

I miss the tacky kitsch of the coast of my youth. I don't think I like these new casinos. I wrote a poem about it, so I guess the trip was good for that reason. I just wish there were fewer all you can eat buffets, and more actual entertainment.