The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. – William Faulkner
I fell in love with the words of William Faulkner in college. I’d always loved reading but in Faulkner I found that the words could evoke a picture in my mind of a place so tangible that I really began to see. Until then my vision had become dulled by the redundancy of plasticine strip malls that punctuated every corner of my Northern Virginian adolescence. Through Faulkner I had found a landscape and milieu. It wasn’t mine, indeed due to the peripatetic nature of my upbringing, nowhere is, but he taught me to see and feel. I know some people can’t stand him, and that’s fine, for me the writing was like learning a new language and that was completely in sync with the message he was always delivering, about the interconnectedness of everything: “maybe nothing ever happens once and is finished” (love them or hate them his sentences also back me up on this).
So I was so grateful to be able to make a pilgrimage to Rowan Oak, his home, this Spring, where I continued a project on Southern writers. I’m very excited about what I saw and photographed. And very endebted to the curator of Rowan Oak, also named Bill, (coincidence?) for his generosity in indulging my sycophantic self. He was as knowledgeable and passionate about the grand master as I was (OK, moreso), and is doing the good work of the humble in preserving an important piece of our history with little fame, glory or monetary recompense. Bill also has an excellent sense of humor, and regaled me with curator humor and insights.
Want to know why curators all dress like Fred Rodgers? If they dressed nicer people would think they were stealing. (I think someone needed to tell this to the good people on the board of directors at the Smithsonian who so failed us when they failed to see this.)
And I know I’ve been blabbering on and on about my trip to Mississippi in March and website updates, but now that I’m back from PhotoEspana and Portugal I promise to do it. Here’s a sampling of the goodness to come. In Faulkner’s downstairs study, the walls served as the canvas for his rough draft of his last major work, The Fable, taken place during one week, The chapters of which represent the days of the week. That’s his handwriting folks.
ok i know this picture is too small to get the full effect. prints are available!
Visit Rowan Oak and say hi to Bill! (both of them)
