Walter Anderson's Colorful Cottage

“For more than 30 years, he was regarded as the town eccentric; today, he’s celebrated as the favorite son of Ocean Springs, Mississippi.”

We wrote yesterday about our introduction to Walter Inglis Anderson through his works on display at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs. We begin with three photos of works not featured yesterday.

In the two examples below, Walter teamed with his brother, a potter, to produce these ceramic works.

Chesty Horse, ceramic, c. 1955. Cast by Peter Anderson. Mold designed by Walter Anderson. Decorated by Walter Anderson to be one of a kind, in purple, blue, green, black, and cream. This horse shows a Chinese influence.

Vase with Colored Geometric Design, c. 1930, Peter Anderson and Walter Anderson.

I have included this watercolor just because I like the color and the composition.

Broken Copper Red Pot, watercolor, 1950

Today we consider the intensity of this artist.

“He cared nothing for fame or recognition; although he produced thousands of pieces of art, his efforts were purely in service to his spiritual and aesthetic quest.

"On many occasions he set out from Mississippi on cross country bicycle trips––to West Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, and New York––painting watercolors and writing along the way.

“'He believed,' says Washington Post art critic Paul Richard, 'that somewhere down the road, he would find the enlightenment he sought. It was a religious quest as well as an aesthetic quest.'

“Anderson’s art reflects not just a love of nature, but an almost total immersion in it. One place in particular was his muse, a windswept barrier island called Horn. Over the course of nearly two decades, Anderson made countless trips to Horn Island, laboriously rowing 14 miles across open water in a small wooden boat loaded down with his art supplies.

"There he would stay for weeks at a time, enduring extreme heat, sweltering humidity, biting insects, relentless sun and fierce winds.

"Of all the works discovered after his death, the most surprising was found inside a locked room in the cottage where he had lived alone for 18 years. When his wife broke open the padlock on the room--a room she had never been in before--she discovered that every square inch of the room was covered with murals-–a kind of Sistine Chapel of Mississippi, one might say.

"According to Anderson’s journal, the room’s swirling patterns and dreamlike images were inspired by Psalm 103, that exuberant hymn that begins, 'Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.' But the Little Room, as it has come to be known, is also a hymn of praise for all that Anderson had experienced on his many trips to Horn Island.

"Anderson did all of this because he was entranced by the flora and fauna of the Gulf Coast. There was hardly a single animal or plant he didn’t capture in his art: oysters, shrimp, fish, crabs, pelicans, turtles, herons, marsh grasses, insects and trees.

"Some creatures he would paint twenty times until he was satisfied with them, covering page after page with his sketches.

"At night he slept in the shelter of his overturned boat; by day he would climb trees, crawl through marshes, and lie nose-to-nose with hermit crabs.

"One time he even chained himself to a tree during a hurricane because he wanted to fully experience its power. He also produced thousands of pages of journal entries reflecting upon his experiences, writing by the flickering light of a campfire.

"His wife Sissy would later say this: 'Being with him was like having intense sunlight concentrated on everything.... He knew things not only by observation, but by a sort of intuition. He himself was later to define it as the ability to become one with any living thing, a tree, flower, ant or bird.'

"Walter Inglis Anderson was a luminous artist—some say the most prolific Southern artist of all time. He found his inspiration and what peace he could in nature, tirelessly drawing, painting, and carving his uniquely stylized images of the flora and fauna of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He was classically trained, and could render perfectly any image. But what Anderson most wanted was to understand nature—to become one with the bird, plant, fish, or butterfly that he was capturing with brushes, paints, linoleum blocks, clay, or wood."

Sources:
ravenandchickadee.com/tag/walter-anderson-museum-of-art/

spiritualtravels.info/articles-2/north-america/walter-anderson-museum-of-art-in-mississippi