One more story about Andrew Wyeth

As you know, I am a bit of an Andrew Wyeth fan and have had a couple of close encounters with his work. Here is the link to My Wyeth Story and the follow up - More Wyeth Lore. You'll have to read the first story to understand the rest of this post.

This past week it was announced that the Olsen House, the site/location of the famous Andrew Wyeth painting, Christina's World, has been designate a national landmark. Here is a story from Boston.com. In honor of the designation,  The Farnsworth Museum has arranged for another exhibit of the Christina's World "studies" described in my story. I recently visited the Wyeth Center at the Farnsworth in Rockland to re-connect with the painting and the studies. This time, I was able get a little closer and noticed that you can definitely see the rust marks.

Finally, from reading the Boston.com story listed above, I learned that Andrew Wyeth is buried in Hathorn Cemetery located adjacent to the Olsen House. See Find-a-Grave for map 

So, if you are a Wyeth fan you can  see the studies, visit the site and visit Andrew's grave all in one day.

More Wyeth Lore

I’ve already posted My Andrew Wyeth Story in this blog twice; once two summers ago and again last winter when Andy died. And since this Sunday, July 12 is Andy's birthday, and proclaimed A Day for Andrew Wyeth by Governor Baldacci, I thought it was appropriate to share this latest yarn.

Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to drive to New York for the wedding of one of my nieces. I stayed at my sister’s house in north Jersey for the whole weekend. As Saturday turned into another one of our all too common rainy days, she suggested we drive down to Montclair, NJ and visit the Montclair Museum of American and Native Art. The sister explained that they were currently exhibiting The Wyeths: Three Generations and that she had been there a few weeks earlier with her kindergarten class. She was knowledgeable about My Wyeth Story although I reminded her of some of the highlights and the post script involving Andy’s granddaughter Vic. The sister howled.

We arrived at the Montclair in the early afternoon and learned that there would be a gallery walk and talk starting in a few minutes. It turned out that the docent that was giving the walk was one of my sister’s colleagues and I was introduced as being the brother from Maine who had had some personal experience with the Wyeth family.

As we had viewed the collection shortly before the gallery walk began, I told the sister a few more recent Wyeth stories that I had heard Jamie tell on the local TV station a few weeks earlier. But I made her relieved/proud when I indicated that I would be keeping my mouth shut once the gallery walk began.

The young woman giving the presentation did a beautiful job and clearly had done her homework. Although I know a lot about the family and the history of many of the paintings, this woman had a few tales that even I had not heard before and it was all very interesting.

A crowd of about 30 people following the walk as we strolled through the large gallery and there were only a few questions asked, all of which the docent securely and authoritatively answered. The exhibit sponsored by the Bank of America is traveling around the country and would be in NJ until mid July.

We were almost through the end of the walk and coming to the last few painting by Jamie Wyeth when the docent stopped in front of one of larger pieces. Called (I believe*) “Harbor, Monhegan,” this is a very colorful painting of a young boy, standing in front of a large oil tank that has been converted into a furnace riding on spoke wheels and spewing large orange flames and thick black smoke. I remembered seeing the painting on the television and hearing Jamie telling a little about the background of the painting. It seems that because of the limited ability to landfill trash on Monhegan Island, that summer, the locals hired this young boy, Cat Bates, to burn the trash in this makeshift furnace which he dragged up and down the beach each day. As the smell of garbage attracted the sea birds, the air and ground in the image, and in the real scene, was full of sea gulls flying and clamoring around the boy.

As the docent was finishing her presentation one woman in the crowd asked about the meaning behind the image of the boy and the fire. I think she may have half expected to hear some wild tale evoking images of Satan and Hell. The docent looked furtively through her notes and then admitted the she didn’t know the origin of the painting. I looked over at my sister who gave me a knowing glance and non-verbal permission to finally open my mouth. So, never being a shy individual, I piped up and detailed the story about Cat and the reason for the conflagration.

I immediately noticed that the flock started to gather around me as I detail more of the specifics. There was soon a dialog. “Is the boy still there? What happened to him? Is his name really Cat?”

I answered to the best of my knowledge that Cat was all grown up now and that Jamie had included him in several other paintings. And, no, I don’t know why his mother named him Cat, but that was indeed his name. (More info about Cat on this website)

We talked for some time about the Maine ecology, sanitation and the independent thinking individuals who inhabit Monhegan Island, Maine.

I was on a roll; I had a captive audience.

Next, I moved to another series of two paintings of sea gulls and told story that I recalled from the television interview with Jamie Wyeth. In this, I explained that Jamie indicated that while painting the gulls one day one bird came very close to his canvas. “I always wondered how much a sea gull weighs,” the junior Wyeth explained. “So, I just reached out and grabbed the bird.”

It seems sea gulls, like most wild creatures, don’t take too kindly to being handled by humans and put up quite a fuss. “The bird started pecking at me and took a nip out of my eyelid,” the artist pointing to some wrinkles above his eyelid to show the scar made by the bird. “They don’t weigh very much at all,” he added.

The small, thinning crowd went wild with enthusiasm.

I decided that I had probably said too much and deferred back to our leader to continue with the tour. But I could see that I had impressed even her.

Soon the walk was over and sister and I joined to thank the docent for her presentation and apologize for perhaps speaking out of turn. She warmly indicated that my contribution has clearly added to the presentation and that she would be using this new-found material in her future gallery walks.

We talked for several more minutes about my experiences and where in Maine I lived. Several others from the tour gathered around and wanted to know if I was a relative. Demurely, I explained I was a mere mortal and that I had was just a big fan of Andrew Wyeth and had seen a number of their exhibits in Maine. I didn’t waste any time and put in a good plug for our wonderful state and invited them to all come and visit us this summer. The Maine Tourism Bureau would be proud.

But before we ended our little Wyeth Love-fest, my sister encouraged me to tell The Story. Coyly, I set the mood and told a much abbreviated version of the tale. My new fan club glowed in approval and absolutely loved the story. They of course wanted to know if I ever took Vic up on the offer for coffee. I told them no, but that may be some day I would.

Perhaps I’ll head down to the Farnsworth this weekend and look for Andy’s granddaughter.

~jeb

* In listening to the WCSH6 interview with Jamie Wyeth, I learned that there are five paintings of this same theme. Not sure which one is in the Montclair exhibit

My Andrew Wyeth Story - repost

In honor of the passing of this great American artist, I am sharing my Andrew Wyeth story:
Republished from August 12, 2007

I’ve told this story many times over the years and friends have suggested that I write it down for “posterity.” I am not sure if this blog can be considered as such, but I will tell the story anyway.

I can begin by telling you this idea was re-stimulated by an article in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram (MST). The MST and the Portland Press Herald love to have “human interest” stories this time of year – I’m sure to appeal to “visitors from away.” Indeed there are always some great folksy articles and stories in the summer issues, and I always look forward to reading them.

Today’s featured article in the Audience (Arts) section is about Maine’s most famous living artist, Andrew Wyeth who spends his summers in the mid-coast area. His son Jamie, perhaps the second most famous living artist in Maine lives here almost year round. But the article is not so much about Andrew as it is about the whole clan, and particularly Victoria (known to all as Vic) , Andrew’s 28-year-old granddaughter who has become something of a family historian and commentator.

The article provides a delightful insight into some of the background of the family and includes some vignettes of some the family eccentricities including the detonation of “crazy” Aunt Carolyn ashes, and a recent birthday party for grandpa complete with Uncle Jamie lighting off cannons.

If you are a Wyeth fan, you’ll love the article – read it on line.

But that’s not my story, mine is better.

It begins in 1970 when I was a camp counselor at a camp located in the town of Cushing, Maine. Each Sunday, the camp co-director (aka “The Old Man”) would take a bunch of kids and me to Rockland to attend church. This trip was only for baptized and practicing “mackerel snappers” and required a special request from parents. Somehow I was selected to be the token staff person to attend with the campers as the camp’s co-director wasn’t of that religious persuasion.

One of the things I enjoyed about this weekly trip was the opportunity to get off the island where the camp was located and see a little bit more of Maine. One Sunday, we took some back roads on our return from church and The Old Man seemed to be hunting for something and we made our way south of Thomaston and on to the back roads of Cushing. At some point along the way he suddenly turned the van off the road and on to a dirt driveway that led down to an old weather-beaten house. A sign at the end of the driveway noted “Olson House” and the ancient building overlooking a broad hayfield that provided a decent view of the St. George’s River beyond. The Old Man announced that this was the place where “that artist guy painted the picture of the crippled girl on the hill.” He fumbled for more details and then remembered the Wyeth name. For some strange reason, I could immediately visualize the picture he described. Strange because at the grand old age of 17, I certainly was not a connoisseur of American art and clearly had only rudimentary knowledge of Andrew Wyeth and “Christina’s World.”

The visit was brief, we didn’t even get out of the van, and soon we were back on the road heading to camp.

The story may have ended here, but several weeks later, my father and sisters were in Maine to visit me at camp and I had my father take this same route to camp from Rockland. Remembering and relating the story about the old farm house, my father became very interested and insisted we see the spot. Somehow I found the driveway and soon learned that my father was a bit of a Wyeth fan and thought this part of the trip was a particularly special bonus.

This time I did get out of the car and looked around the house and the adjoining “out buildings;” a series of sheds and small building that appeared to have been used to keep farm animals. The house and property did not appear occupied at that time, but the ground otherwise looked cared for. The multitude of years of brutal Maine weather had left the outside of the buildings in pretty tough shape and it was obviously they had not been painted in many years.

At this point I was still a bit in the fog when it came to Christina’s World. My father had immediately recalled the name of the painting as I described what The Old Man had said. He even knew that Olson was the name of the woman depicted in the painting; Christina Olson lived here. But it was only what happened next that burned the image of Christina and her world into my permanent memory.

It occurred when I happened to look through the window of one of the out buildings. There, affixed to the wall with some simple thumb tacks were a series of sketches of the major elements of the Christina’s World painting. Initially perplexed, I quickly figured out that these must have been the practice sketches Wyeth used to compose the final painting. Drawn in pencil and clearly damaged by rust stains that had bled out of the thumb tacks, the collection included sketches of the house and a few of Christina herself. None of the sketches contained all of the elements together and I realized had perhaps I had an insight into how an artist mind must work; dabbling along with disparate pieces before the whole gestalt is formed.

Being a bit of a typical teenager, I think I jokingly suggested that we break the window and take one or two of the sketches. It clearly appeared that these things had been here for ages and it was not likely anyone would miss them.

Christina’s World is perhaps one of the most memorable and famous American paintings. In the years that followed the experience at Olson House, I became fascinated by Andrew Wyeth and eventually made it to Rockland in 2000 to see Christina “in the flesh” when she was loaned to the Farnsworth Museum from the Museum of Modern Art.

I’ve told the “sketches” story a number of times over the years - to anyone who expressed any interest in Wyeth – but most people acted as though this was all a bit of bullshit on my part. As time went on, and memories faded or became confused with other experiences, I too began to doubt my recall. When, as an adult I began to realize the value and power of this painting, I could not imagine that the artist would have left these sketches in a seemingly abandoned barn in Cushing, Maine. After all, Christina’s World was painted in 1948 which means the sketches would have to have been hanging there for over 20 years when I saw them in 1970. In subsequent trips to the Olson house, the sketches were no where to be found, adding to my doubt.

Sometime in the late 1990s the Farnsworth Museum, opened The Wyeth Center, a former church converted into a special gallery for viewing and learning about Andrew Wyeth, his famous son Jamie and his equally famous father, N.C. Wyeth. Indeed it was at about this time Christina made her return to Maine and over the years the museum has held many special exhibits of Wyeth works.

A few years later, the museum held an exhibit of something extraordinary, something that made me drop everything a take a trip to Rockland. It was an exhibit of preliminary sketches of Christina’s World.

There in Rockland on a rainy weekday afternoon, I came face-to-face with the sketches I had seen hanging in the Olson’s barn nearly 30 years earlier. Meticulously restored, the sketches were now beautifully matted and framed. In the adjoining descriptions, I learned that they had indeed been left to hang in the Olson House as the artist had used that space up until 1969 to paint many other scenes in that locale.

So, it was all true. I did see them. And, now they were owned by a rich Japanese collector and worth millions of dollars.

I told my story, once again, to a docent working at the exhibit. She shuttered at the thought of my adolescent audacity to “help myself” to some of history’s most treasured artifacts. I had to reassure her several times I was only kidding, although I think the security guards might have been keeping an extra eye on me for the rest of my visit.

So, that’s my story and it’s nice to know that it happened the way I remember it. I have often thought of what it would be like to meet Andrew Wyeth and tell him my tale. I think from what I know about him, he’d get a kick out of it. Who knows, maybe he will read this and give me a call. Better yet, Vic will read the story and invite me over for a couple of beers.

More about Christina's World

~jeb