Mountain Muses

 Mountaineer by Marge Fulton 2008

This is one of my newest watercolors. My scanner didn't get all of him but I want to post a couple of my watercolors to help folks see what I'm up to. This print along with several others are for sale at The Appalachian Artisan Center. Please don't try to print this one as it is not the entire painting anyway and that is a no-no.

 Survivor by Marge Fulton 2008

This scan is too light but you might get the picture here. This print is also for sale at the Artisan Center along with a much bigger painting of this figure. In the larger one, she has recovered from cancer. I need to put watermark signs on these two. Again, please do not try to print these for youself. They do not show the entire painting anyway.

Come to the gallery to see the real deal and the other artists' fabulous pieces there.

WALTER ANDERSON

When you hear the name Anderson associated with art, you may think of the noted author of children's books, Hans Christian Anderson. Walter Anderson also wrote children's tales and put on puppet shows for his family but his life was no fairy tale, no way close to that.

With the news of Hurricane Fay approaching the Gulf, I think of him. When we lived in Memphis, I saw an exhibition of his work at the Memphis Brooks Museum. Somewhere in that stupendous collection, I picked up on the fact that when he was on his retreat island during a hurricane, he lashed himself to a tree and waited it out. He had no choice with only a rowboat for escape. This image comes to mind when news of hurricanes crop up. My husband's family always sticks it out in Pensacola during these storms. There are still plenty of massive trees in their neighborhood, in case they need an anchor.

So what was the nature of Walter Anderson? He is not yet regarded an American icon like Andy Warhol but has a past more colorful than most. Walter Anderson is another "Best Kept Secret" but he is no secret in Mississippi. I will attempt to piece together the crazy quilt of his life. Pardon me for using the word "crazy" in even that context, as he struggled with his sanity or maybe the sanity of the world was his battleground.

He was born in New Orleans in 1903 and lived until 1965. Walter may not have reached the golden age but he lived in the glow of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and saw more miles than most of us ever hope to see. His mother was a trained artist and the family run pottery business still operates in Ocean Springs, MS. Walter made figurines there but was restless. He tried his hand at painting murals for the WPA. After a Washington bureaucrat rejected his second mural, he had a nervous breakdown. That along with the death of his father and bouts of malaria, landed him in and out of several mental hospitals. This part reminds me of the movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. When hospitalized in Baltimore, he escaped and walked over a thousand miles back home. During an escape from the Mississippi State Hospital in Whitfield, he lowered himself from his second story window and then using a bar of soap painted birds in flight on the outside walls. I worked as an art instructor at the Whitfield institution. Little did I know he had been there during the 1930s.

I can never get enough of Walter Anderson. His story is an epic Homer could have written. Walter wrote about as much as he painted. His journals could fill any room and many survive. If Walter lived today he would probably be a super blogger. He wrote of his travels by bicycle across the country and trips to Costa Rica and China. This was a man on fire. Perhaps he was bipolar or a man faced with recurring fevers from malaria. He was a bird in flight most of his life.

In 1941, he moved to Gautier, MS to his wife's father's estate at Oldfields. For only four years there he painted farm life in a series of large murals and created fairy tale inspired prints. It may have seemed a fairy tale life there for a time. Then he left his family to move back to work in the family pottery business where he worked for the next twenty years. For Walter, this was no easy way out. He made frequent excursions to Horn Island to paint life around him. Scholars say his work was a mythical search for unity and transcendence. His entire body of work is a psalm of thanksgiving, they say. Luckily many of the journals and paintings damaged by Hurricane Katrina, were restored. For now much of his work is on microfilm and relocated to universities and museums in and around Mississippi.

Here in Kentucky we have an eye out for Hurricane Fay as it may affect our weather. After viewing Walter Anderson's murals and watercolors once again online, I see his spirit in the surge of many storms. The overwhelming majority of his best watercolors were undated and unsigned having been rendered on 8.5 X 11 typing paper. However modest, he painted to give nature a voice. Walter Anderson's voice is as free as a bird. It gives me hope and strength as I juggle writing and painting and ephemeral things like life. He is that island in the storm.

Check him out at http://www.walterandersonmuseum.org/

Willa Cather

She wrote about pioneers and became a pioneer herself. Willa Cather wrote with passion and a strong sense of place. The heartland of America was her main subject. She made the ordinary extraordinary and has given me the desire to do the same.

During the summer, my mother encouraged me to sign up for book contests. You would register in a local library and after the summer was over, tally up the number of books you had read. As our neighborhood library was tiny, my mother even drove me across Atlanta to a bigger one. I guess prizes were given and I don't remember winning any such tokens. The books themselves were the prize and Willa was at the top of my list.

When my mother passed away last summer, my sister gave me her books. They were jumbled up in a trash bag. Many of the romances and mysteries I donated to Hospice. Without a dustjacket, MY ANTONIA, slept in the heap of books. I devoured that book like a wolf. One of the chapters is about a wedding party devoured by wolves in the old country.

"Willa Cather is one of the most poetical interpretations of American life that we possess." Quote from THE NATION

I have another book of hers on hold to read when winter comes, A YOUNG AND BRIGHT MEDUSA. I may not be able to wait that long.  

A Girl Named Donna

 We had no Special Education class in my grade school near Atlanta. There in Dunwoody, I rarely noticed disabled persons except for the blind man who attended our church. He seemed as magnificent as Jesus. Somehow that man singing the hymns was an inspiration beyond compare.

Then there was Donna. She got around slower than most. This was during John Kennedy's Physical Fitness crusade, a time when we had to run and exercise like crazy at school. Donna may have opted out of P.E. class; she had Cerebral Palsy. Maybe it was during those times that she drew pictures to pass the time. Donna had an eye for art. I noticed her on the sidelines and was curious about her, like I was of the blind man at church.

When our little country school had an art contest, her work was proudly displayed on stage. I remember sneaking in to see the show after the teachers had set everything up. I stayed late at school,  since I was a patrol kid. We wore white sashes and badges and helped the little kids to cross the street.

Donna's work caught my eye. It was bold and overflowed each page. Unlike the controlled and tight drawings that hung everywhere, her paintings were free. I had only talked to Donna a few times. My friends were the go-getters but I have always welcomed change and been interested in people unlike myself. It seems like she and I hung out at school a few times. I wanted her to win the art contest with all my heart.

The judges saw it my may too. Donna got the blue ribbon and the spotlight at Dunwoody Elementary School. That torch was passed on to me as I became more and more interested in people like Donna and in art. Never one to pity or patronize persons with disabilites, I admired the courage of someone like Donna. Later in high school, I never ran across Donna. Perhaps she moved as we often did. All I know is how good it felt to sneak into the art show, stand on that stage and see her work before the judges decided who won. I hope she had a picture perfect life. Her picture added glory to mine.

My Mother, Betty Grear Barber

As an artist, my mother had a very good eye. Blue was her favorite color. She could turn a bowl of fruit into a masterpiece. She loved the work of Grandma Moses.

Now, into my second career, I also sketch and paint. Writing and painting suit each other very well. In fact I may try to illlustrate a book before too long.  My watercolors have evolved and now I paint less wildflowers and more people. I may post some of these soon for you to see.

My mother painted in oils, subjects like horses and boats and roses. She even painted an outhouse and everyone in the family wanted one of those. I have six  or seven of her paintings hanging in prominent places in our home. She passed away in July of 2007 but left a legacy and an inspiration for us all.  She is coaching me from the sidelines.