Soaring Spirits

On the Water

Letter from France

“I am continually arriving from some strange place and everything I see is new and strange.” – Walter Anderson

“This is the story of a man who walked. That is the leitmotif of this story — a man walking. Every one may ride for a certain length of time until they can’t stand it any longer and then they walk. This is done by putting one foot in front of the other. This man rode until he couldn’t stand it any longer—and then he told them to stop the car and he got out, crossed the road, climbed a fence and began to walk.”

So begins a story by Walter Anderson, probably because he was quite a “walker” himself. Anderson was easily at home in China and Costa Rica where he walked extensively when he visited there. But walking was not his only mode of transportation. Indeed, we know he used almost every means possible, as you will see in this exhibition. Both the boat that he found after a storm and the bicycle he personally used have been preserved and are on view. In addition, he rode in cars, rickshas, Chinese junks, ocean liners, rowboats, and several kinds of airplanes and trains. We have pictures painted by him of all of these. We also have his own words about his travels found in his logs, his stories, and his poetry, excerpted both as parts of other writing and in isolation with pictures he drew. For example, his poem about Columbus contains these lines:

That is a rather profound thought which reminds us that we are all connected to each other, that each of us “adds” to the whole rather than “steals glory from the rest,” and this connection is what gave Columbus his strength and his claim on our “oneness” with all things, even death (“when day was done”).

His travels are extensive for the times; they include the countries of China, France, Costa Rica, and the United States. And he rode his bike everywhere — to Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Florida, parts of Mississippi, and all along the Gulf coast, up to North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, even in France, Costa Rica, and perhaps China. And he journeyed around China (probably about 4,000 miles) as far as money and time and troubles would bear during China’s long, devastating, bloody communist revolution of 1927-1949 between Mao Tse-tung and Chiang Kai-shek. And he worked on a road gang in Pittsburgh just so he could buy a canoe to paddle all the way down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to dock at New Orleans.

But why, then, is he so absorbed in his travels? The answer lies in the personal creed of Anderson. He saw travel clearly as a practical means of gaining viewpoints and images for his art. As his daughter Mary put it: “In a process he called ‘realizations’ he absorbed the art he saw in his travels and made it his own.” Second, he always seemed to have a flaming desire for adventure, for daring fate, and for experiencing all forms of nature, culture and people. Third, Anderson found it necessary to separate himself from social restrictions that might limit his art, and from the expectations of civilization that tended to dominate his view of reality. Let’s hear it in his own words: “So much depends upon the dominant mode on shore, that it was necessary for me to go to sea to find the conditional.”

[This begins Walter Anderson’s Log on his trip to China. In route he stopped at Honolulu and Japan before landing in Hong Kong.]

— “The plane got about two hours out [from San Francisco] and had trouble with one of the engines, so we put back. We took another plane and started flying again at about sixteen thousand feet. Below was a sea of white fracto-stratus clouds with openings thru which the blue of the water could be seen. It is the same blue as the Gulf Stream which I had always believed to be unique. . . .”

–– At Hong Kong river I found a fish that “runs like a skip-jack on its tail but when it comes to a rock it leaves the water and walks one fin in front of the another, used alternately until it is high on the rock.”

“In the morning Canton [now called Guangzhou] and the plunge into the interior.”

–– “The trip to Canton was full of interest. It was the first close view of China. Where there were no hills or rivers there were rice fields. Most of the hard work had been done and men, when they were seen, were usually standing in fixed positions.”

–– “In the morning the train stopped under some great stone cliffs with swallows flying around them. I thought of swallow’s nest soup and wondered if these were they.” [Chinese are famous for making excellent swallow nest soup from eggs and birds.]

–– “A group of people on a hot day fanning themselves in unison [look] surprisingly like the young pelicans whose throat pouches vibrate together waiting for the day to cool or for their mother to bring food. The umbrella and the fan very often go together.”

–– “It was a rough journey and on the way I lost my passport which bounced out of my bag.”

–– “At Canton I found that no one would cash my American Travelers Checks.”

–– “Then I went on to the river and had a bath among millions of little green fish and with a green and gold frog watching me from the bank.”

–– “That evening I had supper in a graveyard. I had the usual crowd of spectators, and in front of me the entrance of a village with roofs and ornaments. I approached it and saw one of the most beautiful things I‘ve seen in China.”

–– “Later I awoke dreaming that a water buffalo had hooked my bags with his horns and was taking them away. Someone did, but not a water buffalo and my bags, my money, my passport and my written account of the trip were gone.”

–– “Kweilin [Guilin] is a strange place set among rocky humps, hills, knuckles, coves close together and apart.”

Water Buffalo

Hong Kong Lobster

Walter Anderson
in Ricksha

–– “At last we arrived at Chungking [Chongqing]. There was no hotel at the station so I hired a ricksha to carry me and my suitcase to the Chinese Travelers.

[Here Anderson lost his passport and had to stay several days until the Embassy got a new one. When he returned to Hong Kong, he decided to go to the famous Dutch island of Macao, known for its casinos, although nothing like the ones on the Mississippi Gulf coast.]

–– “A row of junks at the entrance of Macao’s harbor—each junk had a small antiquated cannon mounted in the waist or in the bow.” –– “My visa, which I got in Chungking, is apparently only good for a single visit to Hong Kong — by going to Macao it is violated and I lose my passport. I have to go to the police station on Monday morning. [Poor Walter, he wasn’t told that every time one leaves China he/she must get a reentry visa to return to any part of China. It is a costly and irritating bother.]

–– “Left New Orleans at about one-fifty; arrived Belize about six and Guatemala at 8 o’clock.”

–– “From the air the land has a different character like the back of an animal. . . .The Honduras coast has a rather mongoose appearance. Around Belize the trees seemed to be mainly palms, clumps of small palmettos and a large variety.”

–– “The Salvador white house with red roof is laid out in streets very carefully squared . . . . [like] squares of bananas . . . . There are a good many squares of bananas. Bananas are surprisingly like pineapples when seen from the air.”

–– “Then a range of mountains with white clouds abound their tops and the light from the sun shining thru the clouds.” –– “[Like] the truncated cone of an extinct volcano with a town’s glass windows shining at its feet.”

–– “On Saturday I brought a bicycle. $60. . . . I have found a hotel and a room which I am sharing with my bicycle.”

–– “I’ve seen my first procession of leaf carrying ants. These seem more intelligent than the ones I’ve heard carry whole leaves and apparently use them for a sail.”

–– “During the night I was awakened by a woman in hysterics and remembered Goya’s account of the nightmare and wondered how much Spanish cooking had to do with it.”

–– “I stopped for a beer and a nice little boy with a conch under his arm came in and invited me to his father’s house.”

–– “Today I saw two of the clicking butterflies — the only one that makes a noise.”

–– “The shoreline beneath, yellows and green, then blue water, and a red, purple bottom with green water in between.”

–– “Concave earth convex water full curves of water hollow limitations of marsh holding it in.”

Journeys for Walter Inglis Anderson took many forms, spanning the geography of land through travel as well as the geography of mind through literature. Though Anderson recorded his journeys in personal logs, the public has long wanted a comprehensive look at the artist by those familiar with him, with his art, and with the museum. The stories of Anderson’s grand journey are being recorded as oral history.

Begun in 2000 as a vision of the late WAMA librarian Cheryl Braund Hogg, the WIA Oral History includes the memories of those who personally knew Walter Anderson; the history of the museum, and the history of the original founding organization, Friends of Walter Anderson. The anecdotes shared by those interviewed will eventually be accessible through touch-screen kiosks throughout the galleries. Transcripts, available for study, will be located in the Cheryl Hogg Research Center in the WAMA Library.

Funded in part by the Mississippi Humanities Council through a grant from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the project is chaired by Susie Greene, WAMA Education Specialist, with the assistance of humanities scholar Dr. Deanne Nuwer. The Museum is indebted to the diligence of Dr. Nuwer and Ms. Greene, along with WAMA volunteers, in directing the project in a timely and professional manner. Dr. Barbara Carpenter and Dr. Kelly Gerald of the Mississippi Humanities Council offered invaluable assistance in launching the WIA Oral History. They are all commended for their patience and gracious fortitude.

The Museum gratefully acknowledges those who have participated in the interview process. It is their impressions and memories of Walter Anderson’s journey that give life to the WIA Oral History.

Ray Bellande, Ocean Springs
Courtney Blossman, Ocean Springs
Betty Francis, Ocean Springs
Patty Kamm, Memphis,
Peggy McKnight, Memphis
Anne Moore, Pascagoula
Luise Ross, New York City
Edsel Ruddiman, Ocean Springs


Good Wind, Self Portrait	Mardi Gras 1962

The Artist Sails
Bunch of Bananas	The Pacific