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The View from Horn Island
September 29, 2000 - January 21, 2001 |
Here are some samples of the Walter Anderson's art from Vanishing Point
 Waves on Horn Island, |
 Monarch Migration, |
 The Artist’s Friends |
 Walter Anderson Rowing His Boat, c.1955 (Watercolor) |
 Goldenrod, c. 1960, Watercolor |
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 Horn Island Triptych, c.1960 (Watercolor) ~ The Walter Anderson Museum of Art Permanent Collection |
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| Vanishing Point – The View from Horn Island
The work of Walter Anderson is divided into three major periods, each relating to a particular place. Returning home after his student days at the Pennsylvania Academy, the “Ocean Springs Period” refers to 1929-1937. The “Oldfields Period” of 1940-1947 refers to Anderson’s life at Oldfields, the home of his father-in-law, in Gautier near Ocean Springs. The “Horn Island Period” stretches from 1948 until his death in 1965 and includes Anderson’s most mature work. Islands are truly the stuff of which legends, myths, and poetry are made. Painters also feel the allure of the island. For Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), the lush shores of Tahiti provided images and the impetus to paint them that his native France had failed to provide. Walter Anderson (1903-1965) found that there was no need to go so far afield. Horn Island, one of the barrier islands located 10 miles from the Mississippi mainland, beguiled Walter Anderson. He spoke of the island in these terms: “Such a sky- such water, and Horn Island between with me walking it- the back of Moby Dick, the white whale, the magic carpet, surrounded by inhabited space – strange, inhabited? space.” Horn Island engaged Anderson not only as an artist but also as a philosopher, poet, and naturalist, meeting his great need for solitude. Paradoxically, while he reveled in his seclusion, Anderson was not isolated from life. He spoke of Horn Island as a stage and he participated fully in the drama. In the extensive logs he kept while on Horn Island, Anderson wrote about what he saw, interpreting it for none other than himself and relating it to art, literature, philosophy, botany, and music. He documented through drawings, paintings, and prose his observations of events both great and small, from the activities of a spotted frog to the near-demise of the brown pelican due to the use of the pesticide DDT in the 1940s and 1950s. Anderson continued to fulfill his obligation to decorate pottery for his family back on the mainland at the Shearwater compound, but the time he spent on Horn Island was integral to his existence and his very survival. A sea change occurred during the years Anderson spent on Horn Island. From an entry in his log in 1950, he wrote: “So much depends on the dominant mode on shore, that it was necessary for me to go to sea to find the conditional. Everything seems conditional on the islands. Out there, if I eat I live, if something stronger than I doesn’t destroy me.” In his logs, Anderson reflects on man’s relationship to nature: “If he makes friends with it (nature), does he lose the careless relation that is so important, as every farmer knows from the careless sowing of seeds. If nature becomes a God, will it not also be a demon and destroy him with that careless brutality with which man destroys fish? If the brute is necessary, who is to be the brute? – then music and art are the answer.” Donald Bradburn - doctor of medicine, photographer, and environmental advocate from New Orleans - has long shared Walter Anderson’s passion for Horn Island and explored it since the early 1950s. Through the lens of his camera, we are shown images that simply reveal the complex interrelationship of natural elements on Horn Island. Bradburn has staunchly defended the wilderness for years, and it is largely due to his passionate efforts as an environmentalist that Horn Island is now federally protected as part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. His paintings from the Horn Island Period present a conundrum for the viewer. They were not intended to be polished works of art ready for exhibition, nor were they historical or autobiographical works. In truth, the real meaning of the paintings lies in the fact that they are the evidence or by-product of the artist’s search for “realization.” Horn Island was the vanishing point for Anderson, the place where all things met and converged on one particular horizon. From that meeting place came a remarkable body of work. Anderson entered into a covenant with Horn Island. For the rich images that Horn Island granted him, he reciprocated by painting them with all the majesty they deserved. Joey Rice |
Walter Anderson’s Horn Island
1. Chimney Lagoon
2. Tern Point
3. West Little Point
4. Black Post
5. Rabbit Springs
6. Pouldeau Lagoon
7. Horseshoe
8. Lily Pond
9. Simy Hill
10. Barge
11. Summer Camp
12. Winter Camp
13. Black Lagoon
14. Teal Lagoon
15. East Little Bayou
16. Bull Rush Pool
17. Thru Lagoon
18. Water's House Crossing
19. The Gap
20. The Flat
21. Light House Lagoon
22. Cypress Lake
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Several years after my father’s death, I sailed a very small boat, similar to the ones he used, out to Horn Island for a two week stay. In retrospect, I was probably searching for what he had found there, but at the time that was not my plan. With my fishing gear, a sailboat, and an unexplored island, I thought that I would have a fine adventure. It would be a fun trip. It was not fun. Within the first week I was sunburned so severely that I could not lie down. If I had been able to lie down in a rare patch of transient shade, the mosquitoes and flies and ants would have feasted even more mercilessly on my raw flesh. I still carry a memory from that trip of poling my boat across a heat-hazed lagoon wondering if I had not somehow traded places with Charon on the Styx. Perhaps more significant that the physical discomfort was my discovery that I did not like the person I was with. This was especially painful because I was completely alone on the island. Somehow in spite of this suffering, or perhaps because of it , I began during this time to understand a little more about my father. We communicated through experience. One of the things that he had written kept coming to mind*. And I found myself questioning whether a man who spent his entire life revealing and creating beauty (celebrating existence) was really crazy or whether perhaps, the world which called him crazy was not perhaps essentially flawed. That I was filled with questions does not surprise me. But I was awestruck by the facility and the certainty with which answers came. Suddenly I knew that life was good and had purpose, and that I wanted to be a participant in the process. Within a very brief period on Horn Island the course of my life changed in a very good way. These changes have stayed with me. They have comforted me and supported me in difficult times. I have often yearned to share them with others. But have come to realize that they were experiential changes that probably cannot be transmitted through words. To know something is not the same thing as to think it or even to believe it. Perhaps there are places where this kind of experience can happen. There have been many accounts throughout history of those who go out into the desert or up to a mountaintop or visit some other special place then return fundamentally changed. Is Horn Island one of these places? I have plenty of company when I refer to Horn Island as a special place. In the mid-70’s, a small group of people worked feverishly for several years to get Horn Island declared a Wilderness Area so that it would not be ‘developed’ for recreational use as planned by the National Park Service. The people involved worried that they would be alone and vastly outnumbered by opponents at the public hearing which was the culmination of their efforts . Would anyone, outside the group, come to a public hearing to support something so esoteric as wilderness for Horn Island-a concept which tinkers with the fundamental structure of humanity’s relationship with nature? Imagine the amazement of those present when they discovered that the large auditorium was completely packed with people adamantly demanding that Horn Island remain untouched . Instead of no support there was actually no opposition. The people who came were remarkably diverse. There were doctors, lawyers, carpenters, plumbers, housewives, engineers, biologists, and fishermen . No two were alike . Yet they all agreed that Horn Island was such a special place that it should not be changed. I am inclined to conceive of the “specialness” of Horn Island and the “specialness” of my father’s paintings from the Horn Island period in mystical or spiritual terms. Thus, I feel that a discussion of the paintings in this show devoid of a mystical component would be as futile as trying to describe them without mentioning color. Some would prefer that I write about an island composed of a certain number of tons of sand located a certain number of miles off the coast. However, I believe the island in these paintings is not located off our coastline at all. This island was located deep within the artist who painted these pictures.It also may be located deep within you and your relatives and your friends. I believe this island represents the Outer-Most Place which is the Inner-Most Place within us all. Walter Anderson is revealing more in these paintings than birds, or shells, or an island. The most dramatic and important element hidden in these paintings is the perspective of the artist who painted them. In this case the element of perspective to which I am referring is neither slightly to the right or left nor is it from above or below. The critical message which is subtly conveyed throughout all of Walter Anderson’s later paintings is the “state of being” of the artist who painted them. This artist was painting from an island, not in the Gulf of Mexico, but deep within his own soul. He was painting from a place of perfect harmony with nature. He was painting from a place of transcendental bliss filled with awe and wonder and joy. This revelation is particularly significant because Walter Anderson was “only” human. If he was human and we are human then perhaps it is humanly possible for all of us to go to this blindingly beautiful place, to this Heaven on Earth. Walter Anderson has shown us in these paintings that this place exists, it is worth finding and it is humanly possible to be there. Perhaps this is the source of the resonant joy that we feel when we look upon these paintings. His works from this period provide mirrors to our souls. They strike a spark within and reflect a fire we did not realize existed there. “In speaking of a natural thing most men assume a natural law. All things in nature are governed by this law. Man begins by saying ‘of course,’ The love of bird or shell which might have restored his life flies away carried by the same wind which has destroyed him.” ( Horn Island Logs of Walter Anderson) – John Anderson |
 Horn Island is the most valuable land of the Gulf Coast.
Not in the usual economic sense, of course, but in the currency of the soul. It is a window into the real world that sustains all life, a glimpse into the world where nature is dominant. It is a benchmark, a place to reevaluate what we call progress. Here is a place to walk under towering clouds, see to the horizon, find sand so finely wind-groomed as to preserve the recent trespass of the smallest denizens. Time for a moment becomes limitless, as unhurried moment not only to explore the natural world but to visit oneself.
Much of our world’s entertainment encourages us to pass our limited time in passive bemusement. Today we are offered instant worldwide communication. How often do we access ourselves? Walter Anderson sought to become as one with the natural world, to know it, to experience it, to see the familiar as new and unfamiliar (to “realize it”). A sense of place is often crucial to an artist’s work. Of the barrier islands in Mississippi, Horn Island in particular was the fulcrum for the ultimate and finest flowering of Anderson’s art as well as his emotional salvation.
Joseph Wood Krutch in speaking of Thoreau wrote that one cannot even begin to love Nature in any profitable sense until one has achieved an empathy, a sense of oneness, and of participation. True appreciation means an identification, a sort of mystical experience, religious in the most fundamental sense of the term. – Donald Muir Bradburn Photography by Donald Bradburn |
VANISHING POINT CALENDAR
September 29 • 6 pm - 8 pm
Opening Reception and Walter Anderson’s Birthday CelebrationOctober 7 • 8 am - 5 pm
Educational Excursion to Horn Island
Island Workshops:
• Photography, Donald Bradburn
• History, Flora and Fauna -
Anne Bradburn, botanist and John Anderson, naturalist
• Drawing/Watercolor - Bette Cloar, artist and educator
October 10 • 10 am
Gallery Walk with John Anderson
November 12 • 2 pm
ArtTalk with Donald Bradburn
$3 Members, $5 Non-Members
For more information, contact the
Education Department at 872-3164, ext. 111
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