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.