A VISIT TO THE MUSEUM

I was still recovering when my son, Vanja, asked me to meet my granddaughter’s  class at the museum for their tour, and I had my doubts. But, when he told me Julia had asked if Nanny would be there, I knew I would go.

There must have been at least twenty children and adults in our “tour”, and my little camera did overtime as I focused and shot, determined to record their journey. Yet, later, when I looked at the shots of the larger group, I found a need to pull closer…to select and crop in order to catch the response of small groups and individuals. Each child matters so much in the overall experience.

It has been more than two weeks since that joyous day with Julia and her classmates, and time has allowed me to gaze upon faces and gestures and come to know them a bit. I am also revisiting my extraordinary father’s murals through their pristine perceptions. I thank them for that.

It all started with Melissa, who greeted the children at the door and escorted them into The Community Center: a large room originally built for community functions. In the fifties my father was paid a dollar to paint murals on the walls. One wall would depict the history of our little town of Ocean Springs. The rest of the room would be painted according to the artist’s choosing. (I was taking ballet lessons in the room while my father was painting those walls.) Melissa established a rapport with children from the beginning. She is a marvelous storyteller and teacher, and part of being a kindergartener is getting close and bonding with a teacher.  As I looked through these images, hands and faces seemed as expressive as the painted murals. In fact they seemed to be interdependent.  Their union completes the picture.

I think I will never see this pelican again without also seeing the enthusiastic raising of small hands.

Nor will I ever forget the loving gaze I received from Julia. I still feel the love that she paused to send in her Nanny’s direction. Her happiness was palpable, and I was, amazingly, part of that.

 Inspired by her love

and my father’s spiraling birds,

I led the children in a small dance of bird-like freedom.

Julia was ready;

 her lovely arms were ascending,

unfolding in the Airth way to form wings.

Child-wings soon filled the air,

eyes were alight with flight.

I may have been a grandmother

and the air around me filled

with fledglings,

Yet, together, we were dancing/flying with my father’s birds.

After an extremely reluctant descent from the world of bird, the still softly peeping children were led by the patient Melissa down the long hallway to The Little Room.

The Little Room was once attached to Walter Anderson’s cottage on the Shearwater Pottery compound. For many years after my father’s death in 1965, visitors were led into the painted room as into the holy of holies, often by my mother, the artist’s wife.

Mama’s reverence for the room

was now echoed by Melissa.

Her rapt expression even reminded me

of my mama’s…

as the light from the window caused her to glow

along with the walls.

I remember Mama standing in the room

her arm raised and her hand

all turned to light.

Here, now, was little Julia standing

beside Melissa

her small hand turned to light.

And all the children were receiving…

LIGHT!

WANTING

Week before last, as I thought of the upcoming gala for the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, I contemplated doing a sculpture for the silent auction. They are always popular, especially those that suggest the artist himself…with his signature hat and some creature or bird as a symbol of his love for nature.

I was ill that week, trying to recover from a urinary tract infection that struck hard over the weekend. But I seemed to be recovering. I had to recover…with the paper doll exhibit coming up, not to mention a book signing at Barnes & Noble and the WAMA artist’s party itself at which donations would be accepted.

Yes, I contemplated a sculpture

with others in mind.

What would please was foremost

 as I placed my basket of wire

on the floor by my chair.

In my hands the wire writhed a bit

as I struggled to ignore gut-feelings

and keep to my plan.

The truth of the matter was this:

that my own deep wanting

was striving

to reach my hands,

while my mental and habitual tendencies

stubbornly carried on.

Instead of a woman

resting voluptuously in her naked solitude,

I brought forth my father:

the celebrated artist

whose fame had made him

so in demand.

Never mind that the living man

would have wanted his daughter

to be true to herself.

Above all,

to be true to herself…

The figure got done, and I leaned him against the black drape to take his picture. Otherwise, he remains unfinished. The Gala is over. And when I look at Walter now, I dream up ways to get him out of the box. Or is it the woman I want to get out of the box? Maybe both of us – Daddy and me – finally free of external agendas. I can easily see my daddy proudly walking right out of that box. And his daughter – the woman – the sculpture that I truly am wanting to make of myself… I see her reclining peacefully, smiling as the world rushes by.

I

A Reason To Dance

One week from today I will – yet again – find myself dancing before my father’s mural’s in the Ocean Springs Community Center. The occasion will be the twentieth anniversary of the Walter Anderson Museum of Art. I am dancing not as Leif Anderson, a dancer worthy of being seen, but as Leif Anderson, the daughter of the artist, Walter Anderson. This is a familiar reason to dance. There have been countless such appearances, and I have always risen to the occasion.

This time the rising is slow to happen. I find myself weary of celebrating the parent who was never really there. His rare appearances were of the nervous-making sort, possibly better than no appearances. I have made the most of my memories of my father in my book: DANCING WITH MY FATHER,  and this was a deeply healing experience – even freeing for a while. Yet – six years later – I am  still expected to celebrate his life  more than my own. I am obligated as he never  was by his child’s existence. Love wasn’t enough, I guess.

Because I do believe he loved me, perhaps saw in me some of his own passion for expression even as his quest repeatedly pulled him away to his solitary pursuits. And I have to believe he inspired me to follow my dreams, although it was my ever present mother who so nurtured those dreams – encouraged the flight by grounding it in reality.

She did this for him, as well, made a living that he might live – supported his artmaking that this same art might eventually support so many. Would there be a Walter Anderson Museum of Art without the dependable grounding love that Agnes Grinstead Anderson provided for her husband and their children. 

Perhaps whoever is reading this will understand that I have been questing as I write – questing for a reason to back up my Sunday performance – and I think I may have found it. My purpose (a familiar one, really) is to do my best to restore the balance. I shall begin by celebrating my mother’s essential contribution to the whole.

Years ago I wrote two poems to affirm my parentage. I revived them this year – have been singing them as I walk the dogs or drive around in the car. The interesting thing I have noticed is that the Earth Mother poem can stand alone. It comforts and grounds me as my human mother once did. But the Father Sky poem cannot fly alone; it requires the Earth Mother poem to lift off. It has to begin with her. Bless you, Mama… Daddy and I are eternally grateful for the dance.

The Artist’s Gift

Last week, with the Walter Anderson Museum Gala approaching, I returned to the wire to create an offering for the Gala auction. My fingers were stiff and reluctant – unaccustomed to the unruly stuff after such a long break. It was difficult to still my dancer’s body long enough to wrest some form from resistant matter. Yet my hands did remember and connected with some mental image of my artist father. His trade mark hat came first and, of course, the nose. Broad shoulders and large hands followed and immediately suggested some kind of offering. The theme of the Gala was Fleurs de Vie, so flowers hovered invisibly for future manifesting. Due to various other obligations, my father’s upper torso hung suspended by a long umbilicus above my wire-working basket for several days.  He seemed unperturbed by the wait, and when I returned, his further formation happened with ease. The stand was quickly done and the figure attached. Yet it was the flowers and the paintbrush, sprouting and blooming from the artist’s fingers, that made the gift complete. My father’s gift – and my own.