3 | Sabbath Among the Ancient Wood
I took my last sabbatical seven years ago – that’s typically the time cycle for a tenured professor. Sabbatical comes from the Greek word sabatikos, which means “Sabbath,” the day of rest that happens one day each week (or every seventh day). This is the first time I’m taking a full year, rather than one semester, so I guess that means I’m finally taking a full day “off.” Off from what, is the question. In my case, no teaching, no meetings, no email, no money! Instead I get the entire year to work on my book – hardly what I’d call a day of rest, but I’ll take it.
This sabbatical has a much different feel than 2015 when I was on the front end of the project – the hunter-gatherer period: research, interviews, a lot of travelling. Now I’m on the back end, spending most of my time sitting in front of the computer screen, either in deep contemplation or writing or both, trying to get it all down and pulling in the loose ends. This time I’m mainly working in solitude, on the heels of a pandemic, where many of us became used to working at home in our offices—so not a lot has changed in that respect. Consequently, I find it healthy to take planned breaks: family visits, trips up to the mountains or simply Zooming with the kids, walks with my wife and Wilson, and my Sunday pottery class. It feels good to step away and clear my head.
I have to admit we inhabit a very different world than we did seven summers ago when I made my first trip to the Getty, taking the opportunity to visit friends and family, and to conduct some memorable interviews. Over the past decade I have managed to interview all of the living Gate Hill founders, followed up by speaking with dozens of close friends and many of the children who grew up there, bringing added perspectives to this complex story. I also took this occasion to drive up the coast of California into Oregon, something my wife and I had wanted to do for many years. For me, an avid photographer my entire life, these trips are always a prime opportunity to stop and take out my camera. In a way it forces me to literally stop, and take it all in, to live in the moment. In retrospect, after several years of increased travel anxiety, that trip seems so carefree. I miss that feeling, something I’ve tried to recapture in the following travelogue.
Week 1 / The Getty Research Institute:: Even for the seasoned researcher the Getty Center in L.A. can be daunting. How many museums do you know of that you actually have to take a computer-operated tram just to drop you at the entrance? But it’s an inspiring place to do research (or visit), sitting on a hilltop, nestled among the Santa Monica Mountains, surrounded by beautiful gardens and open spaces. The architect, Richard Meier, chose Italian stone for most of the material, which gives it a modern sort of Romanesque feel. The views of the city can be spectacular or smoggy or foggy. In looking back over my pictures, I think I had moments of each.
The Getty Center. Photo © 2015 by Mark Davenport.
• Click/tap on any image to enlarge/view photo credit •
All photographs © Mark Davenport (except as noted)
Most of my time, however, was spent down in the bowels of the research library and special collections. That’s where the voluminous collections of David Tudor and M.C. Richards are entombed. Between the mountains of letters, scores, articles and reviews, programs and announcements, financial papers, photographs and recordings, it’s hard to know where to start (and when to stop). One must be meticulously organized and methodical (or at least try to be). For me the “Correspondence” is my meat and potatoes. How many times has my heart stopped when I read a beautiful passage or poem.
I often have the most fun when carefully sifting through the boxes of photographs, where I found this great shot of John Cage’s sliding front wall at Gate Hill – in the open position no less (see below left). What was Paul Williams thinking? You’ll have to read the book! Almost every image has some historical significance. The photo of M.C. and her second husband Bill Levi, lighting up at Black Mountain in 1948 (below right), was taken by M.C.’s former student Jim Herlihy, before he became known as a successful novelist, his work providing the source for some cinematic blockbusters (Midnight Cowboy for those old enough to remember).
Then the young lovers (M.C. and David Tudor below left) at some event in New York, most likely, but not known. I’m quite certain that’s Carolyn Brown in the foreground (dancer with the Merce Cunningham Company). And in one of the miscellaneous file boxes, this small Photo Booth snapshot of a trio of kids (below right) – no markings or identification, but any of us who grew up at the Land would easily recognize Stan and Johanna VanDerBeek’s daughter August, and Paul and Vera Williams’s children Jenny and Merce. It must have meant something to M.C. for her to hold onto it for so long. It’s not an image I’ll likely use in the book but those cheery smiles sure brightened things up that day.
The absolute last thing I wanted to do at the end of the week was to go through David Tudor’s tax returns. Why did I save this for last? Just looking at the photo of that library cart still makes me a little queasy. I mean the man saved literally every single scrap of paper he ever laid his hands on! But lo and behold – the infamous black ledger. There it was – a document of practically every penny given to John Cage for his “Magnetic Tape Project.” Considering the historical significance of the ledger book, as I say in the journal article I wrote about it, it’s remarkable the document has gone undetected for so long; at least (outside of the Getty collection itself), I have not found a single reference to it. The moral of the story – follow the money – true, though not a particularly inspiring refrain.
Week 2 / Long Beach and Santa Barbara: After a wonderful family reunion weekend in Long Beach, where my mother Patsy resettled after moving away from Gate Hill in 1963, Marilyn and I drove up to Santa Barbara, our first stop on our way up to Portland. The drive there from Long Beach takes about two-and-a-half hours, a trip I know well. My grandmother Grace retired there in the 80s and after she died, Patsy moved there, where she lived for the next two decades. She calls them “the happiest days of her life,” and it’s easy to see why. They don’t call the Santa Barbara coast “the Riviera” for nothing. We stayed at the beautiful mountaintop home of August VanDerBeek and her husband Mark. August and I have known each other our entire lives. I was very much looking forward to my interview with her. We spent the late hours of the day on their back patio, overlooking the city, followed by a delicious home-cooked meal (chicken, kale, potatoes), joined by August’s daughter Satara.
Interview with August VanDerbeek at her home in Santa Barbara. Photo ©2015 Mark Davenport.
Like many of us kids growing up at Gate Hill, we’ve collected many of our parent’s artifacts over the years, mementos, a lot of junk, and sometimes some really cool ART! Almost all of it is immediately recognizable. You can’t mistake Stan’s little sculptures made of old knives and forks and spoons and, in this case, an old eggbeater. So light, joyous, and playful. And what home is complete without our treasured collection of cups, bowls, vases, or those infamous “flameproof” casseroles of Karen Karnes. I have to say this stunning bowl August has collected might be one of Karen’s finest.
• Click/tap on any image to enlarge/view photo credit •
All photographs © Mark Davenport (except as noted)
More recently, August has been going through her parent’s “home movies.” You can imagine what that might entail. I’m as equally excited for her as I am sorry. And she has also been methodically going through her Mom’s material, an artist who is only now gaining some attention. You may have caught Johanna’s one-day exhibit at Ashawaugh Hall in East Hampton last month. I’m sorry to have missed it but I look forward to more of the same in the near future.
I hoped to get a shot of August and me before departing but we didn’t get to it – so, instead, I searched the Landkidzink vaults and the first thing that popped up was this grainy image – from a contact sheet of photos by Scott Hyde during a Gate Hill picnic celebration in 1959. Not sure if I’m just making a face or about to give her a kiss! That’s her Mom Johanna sipping coffee behind us. I love the minimalist surroundings – our table, a large board on two wooden sawhorses, the free-standing kitchen counter and on the right just a bit of that classic mid-century butterfly lounge chair – I think we all had at least one of those.
Mark, with August and Johanna VanDerBeek, May 1959, Davenport House, Gate Hill Cooperative. Photo by Scott Hyde. Courtesy Landkidzink Image Collection.
Creston: The next morning we were on to Creston, a small town (less than 100 population) about halfway between Santa Barbara and Monterey. There we caught up with Barbara Brainard [McCallum Pina] and her husband Jim. Barbara’s a native Californian, a free spirit, having grown up in L.A., but I wanted to speak with her about her days in the 50s and 60s living up the road from Gate Hill. Her first husband Harkey was a dancer with the José Limón Dance Company, and they were all connected politically through the Fellowship of Reconciliation and other activist organizations.
In the late 60’s Barbara started the “Wild East Trading Post” (sorry no photos for that) in one of the small local tract houses separating her home and Gate Hill along Willow Grove Road (about a half mile walk). I still remember the beautiful glass wine set my father bought in her store, next to the full case of hash pipes and rolling papers. Barbara and her family never lived at the community but they became part of the close-knit scene for many years and she had a helpful perspective to impart about those early days at Gate Hill. A self-described Earth Woman, Barbara has a wonderful creative streak, evident in her home in Stony Point all those years ago, and also at Creston, her bottle wall so much like the installation her second partner Carlos Pina made for my parent’s bedroom extension. And look – a gorgeous early flowerpot by David Weinrib on her front porch. Art can be so everlasting.
Carmel, Berkeley and Mendocino: From Barbara’s house we headed off Highway 101 and onto the more scenic California Route 1, that snakes up the coast. We spent the night in Carmel, with its refreshing cool Pacific Ocean breeze filling our lungs. The next morning, as we continued the drive up towards Mendocino, we made a quick pitstop in Berkeley. What a great city – but only enough time to stop by the Walden Center and School, an alternative school founded in 1958. My interest there was to look at the buildings, all designed by Paul Williams. I was excited to know that the place not only still exists but is thriving. It’s a great side story (Chapter 5, I think). It was summer, and the school was closed, but I managed to sneak in a few photos. This one of the large community building designed (inexpensively was the key here) like a giant garage, with three huge sliding doors, the panels fashionably painted (much more recently) in bright colorful designs.
Walden Center and School, Berkeley, CA. Photo © 2015 Mark Davenport.
We arrived in the beautiful coastal community of Mendocino later that afternoon. Known for its cliffside trails and beaches, virtually every view is a picture postcard. The town has managed to retain much of its historical charm, a place worth returning to.
Homefront garden at Mendocino. Photo © 2015 Mark Davenport.
To the Red Wood Forest and Oregon Coast: Our trip through Trinidad and up to Florence, Oregon, took us through the enchanting Redwood Forest. Okay, so If you don’t like photos of trees, move along… We took some time to explore Lady Bird Walk in the Redwood National Forest. The trees are so big you could practically drive through them. It’s a majestic experience walking among some of the giants of the world’s forests, an encounter with nature that’s hard to put into words. Photos help but still no substitute. “It just don’t do it,” as Joni would say.
“The trees are so big you could practically drive through them!”
Week 3 / Portland: As the scenic part of our trip was coming to an end, we began to look forward to our stay in Portland, especially since both of our boys and nephew had settled there. That weekend we got a front row seat (well everyone was standing actually), for our son’s band, performing at a local club – when Portland still had a thriving live music scene.
We the Wild. Portland, OR. Photo © 2015 Mark Davenport.
Portland is also home to several ex-Gate Hill coop members – Abel Weinrib, whose parents (David Weinrib and Karen Karnes) both taught at Black Mountain and later helped found Gate Hill, and Tom Ancona, whose parents and siblings came to the community in that second wave in the early 60s. Tom and Abel and I have also known each other all of our lives. I interviewed Abel at his home in Portland where we had fun looking through his collection of his mother’s pottery (most of it fastened down because of the earthquakes – and in Abel’s case the cats added to the concern). I immediately recognized the exceptional piece on his coffee table that adorns the cover of A Chosen Path, the beautiful publication about Karen’s ceramic art. Tom and I got together for his interview at his office (Ancona + Associates, inc.), overlooking downtown Portland. The week was capped by a family BBQ at Tom and his wife Laura’s home, in an uplifting multi-generational gathering.
I returned to sunny California several times over the next half decade, especially setting aside time to go back to the Getty, which has way too much material to try and digest it all in one trip. I’m looking forward to sharing more of those efforts with everyone.
Now on to the next chapter, just as fast as these fingers of mine are willing to move!