Page 33 - South Mississippi Living - January, 2019

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“Coming back to camp I thought of God, and a white Heron flew up; and a little while later when I thought of man – a Red Winged Black Bird flushed.” – Walter Anderson, from The Horn Island Logs
On my four-day excursion, I camped with a group that included the artist’s son, John Anderson; colleagues from the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, who organized the trip; and fellow explorers who sought proximity to the elemental land. When I ventured out from my south- side camp – one day, to the east; the next, to the west – I saw the island move and speak. When I thought I was alone on the path, a rabbit darted from the brush; later when I waded through a tide pool and contemplated home, a blue crab at my feet submerged itself in sand.
What does the island offer? Chiefly, paradox: abundance and austerity; stillness and perpetual motion; alien landscapes cut off from our world and still connected to it through the debris that washes ashore; and time travel, if one imagines all the footsteps that came before.
The pine tree does not wake up one day and decide to be an oyster; or the pelican, a sand flea. They are eternally themselves. Walter Anderson believed the ecosystem’s order could direct humanity toward a truer way of being, and his art is physical evidence of the transcendent search. It isn’t stranded on the island, but preserved on land in the museum that bears his name. It’s here for all who crave adventure.
Julian Rankin is the Executive Director of the Walter Anderson Museum of Art. Learn more at walterandersonmuseum.org.
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I set out to Horn so that I might connect with the mystery that fueled him