Elements: Fire, Air, Earth, Metal, Water, & Wood, Kiowa, the D. H. Lawrence Ranch near Taos, New Mexico, February 2007, all photos © 2007-2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
I have lived most of my life near major rivers: the Savannah, the Susquehanna, the Clark Fork, Bitterroot, and Blackfoot rivers that run through the deep mountain valley of Missoula, Montana. But for the last 24 years, home has been near the Mississippi in a Midwest state that boasts the river’s birthplace – Lake Itasca, Minnesota.
Liz and I explored Itasca State Park a few years ago and stood at the source, the Mississippi Headwaters, on root clusters of some of the oldest Red and White Pines in this country. Closer to my Southern roots, I recently started reading Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, part of The Family Twain published in 1935, an original volume bought at a garage sale last summer.
If you follow the river’s flow, you will gain a whole new respect for Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) who published more than 30 books, hundreds of short stories and essays, and gave lectures while touring the world. That’s part of the reason my ears perked up at a recent NPR piece, Finding Finn, when I heard writer Jon Clinch plea for financial support to help preserve the financially-strapped Mark Twain Home in Hartford, Connecticut.
Clinch, author of Finn, and a host of other writers gathered at the home in September and read from some of their favorite Twain books to show their support. The list of authors included such heavy hitters as Tom Perrotta (The Abstinence Teacher), David Gates (Jernigan), Arthur Phillips (Angelica), Tasha Alexander (Elizabeth: The Golden Age), Philip Beard (Dear Zoe), Kristy Kiernan (Matters of Faith), Robert Hicks (The Widow of the South), and Amy Mackinnon (Tethered).
Maybe you’re thinking, what’s this got to do with me?
Everything. Maybe for you, it’s not Mark Twain. But have you ever seen Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings, then longed to visit Abiquiú or the Pedernal near Ghost Ranch, New Mexico? It throws a whole other perspective on a lifetime of painted desert. What about Hemingway’s early days in Kansas City, Missouri. Or Flannery O’Connor’s childhood home in Savannah, Georgia.
Maybe for you, it’s visiting the home architect Frank Lloyd Wright built, Fallingwater near Mill Run, Pennsylvania, or a few nights in the Willa Cather room at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House (did you know ybonesy’s dad worked there one summer as a teenager?) in Taos, New Mexico. We had one red Ravine Guest who dreamed about the home of Frida Kahlo. It was such a powerful experience, she felt compelled to travel to Mexico and see it for herself.
Why? Because Place matters. Ground where writers, painters, architects, artists and visionaries lived, worked, and died matters. The places we call Home shape who we are, who we want to be, who we will become. North, South, East, or West, the geography of land, water, and sky influences our work, filters into our vision, helps us hone our craft, whether we are aware of it or not. And the preservation of these places is paramount to our own development as writers and artists.
While researching On Providence, Old Journals and Thoreau, I stumbled on the Walden Woods Project which was founded in 1990 by recording artist Don Henley. At the time, 60% of Walden Woods – a 2,680 acre ecosystem surrounding Thoreau’s Walden Pond – was protected from development. But two large tracts of land were endangered when developers sought to construct an expansive office and condominium complex in the mid-1980s. The National Trust for Historic Preservation twice listed Walden Woods as one of America’s Eleven Most Endangered Historic Places.
But the story has a happy ending. The Walden Woods Project embarked on a national campaign to raise public awareness and the funds necessary to purchase and preserve the endangered areas. In January 1991, the Project bought the 25-acre tract that had been slated for the development; a few years later, the second tract of land was acquired. Since then, they’ve protected 150 acres in and around Walden Woods and provided quality programming for hundreds of researchers and more than 200 high school teachers and students.
I’ve walked around Walden Pond, stood in the doorway to Thoreau’s cabin. I’ve been to Hibbing, Minnesota, in the living room of Bob Dylan’s childhood home. And a few years ago, ybonesy and I took a day trip to Kiowa, the D. H. Lawrence Ranch outside of Taos, New Mexico. The place was given to Lawrence and Frieda by Mabel Dodge Luhan. Dorothy Brett lived there for a time using Aldous Huxley’s typewriter to type Lawrence’s manuscripts.
Georgia O’Keeffe sat under the giant pine outside the Lawrence cabin and immortalized it in paint forever. Would you rather read about the Lawrence Tree? Or touch its barky skin, slide your feet through the pine needle beds beneath it, stare upside down at the New Mexico stars and sky.
To be able to go back to the place a writer or artist worked and lived is an inspiration. The authors calling attention to Mark Twain’s home in Hartford are sounding the alarm. Not everyone has the resources to donate money, but we can all work to raise awareness by spreading the word. Or visit the homes of writers and artists in the areas where we live and travel.
Those who blazed the trail before us are our mentors. For Jon Clinch, it’s Mark Twain. He’s willing to donate time, money, and energy to save Twain’s home and preserve the literary legacy of place. Who is it for you?
The Mark Twain House & Museum
351 Farmington Avenue
Hartford, CT 06105
860-247-0998
Other links to explore:
- Jon Clinch’s Website — bio and link to podcast of Finding Finn
- Writing the Story of Huck Finn’s Father — NPR piece on Jon Clinch
- Huck Finn’s Father — NPR piece on Jon Clinch and Finn
- Excerpt from Finn by Jon Clinch on NPR – print excerpt from Finn
- Richard Henzel as Mark Twain — filmed at the Mark Twain Home in Hartford, Connecticut
- Mark Twain’s Home May Close — NPR story on possible closing of Mark Twain’s Hartford home
- History of the Mark Twain House – history of Twain’s Connecticut home (he had one of the first telephones installed in a private home!)
-posted on red Ravine, Friday, October 24th, 2008
Hey, QM, just checking in from PDX. (I love airports that offer free internet service!!)
First, just want to say that the formatting on these photos, with black borders around thumbnail shots, is really great. Nice bold touch.
Second, the thought occurred to me that perhaps there is a common trait among writers and artists that draws them to Place. So, we are writers and artists ourselves, and we want to understand as much as we can about other writers and artists. We want to know where they lived, walk where they walked, see what they saw. And maybe that is an essence that makes us writerly or artistly (is that a word?).
And maybe this desire to understand someone else is connected to the desire to understand ourselves. That our passion is all about a sort of self-questioning, self-examination, and an intense drive to know something about ourselves. Hence, we seek that knowledge in others.
Well, those are my thoughts, first impressions as I do a first read of your post. This weekend I will read it again and reflect upon it further.
Thanks for all the work that went into this. Besides the formatting on the photos, lots of great links pulling related posts together, creating a body of work in one place.
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ybonesy, thanks, partner. How’s the world traveler? I agree — part of the need and desire to connect to and understand other writers and artists is to understand ourselves. I get so many insights into my own life when I visit all of these places. Not to mention the fuller understanding of what it means to live a full creative life.
I didn’t realize until I started to pull this piece together how many people and places we had written about on red Ravine And I have barely scratched the surface. There is no denying how important it is to us to continue to explore place, geography, and home.
I haven’t listened to everything in the links yet myself. And I want to take the time to do that this weekend. I’m becoming kind of fascinated with Twain and Jon Clinch’s writing about him and his father. It reminds me of Steve Almond and his love of Vonnegut.
I’ve been going back through my photos from the last few years and trying to get them out there. These were not previously published. It’s kind of fun to revisit these places through the lens. Safe travels, ybonesy.
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i have always wanted to stop at the Twain home in CT on my travels, but usually we are on the way to Maine, and it is a long enough drive that i don’t stop. Maybe next summer i will go and just do that.
harriet beecher stowe lived across the street from twain, and i wonder how two such different voices got along. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is still on the list of must reads for school aged children. place is interesting to think about, as how someone in connecticut had such a revealing look into slavery.
Place shapes all of us. I had an interesting discussion with Quoinmonkey regarding the fact that i still consider myself from Ohio. i haven’t lived there since i was 6, but i think Freud would agree that my personality was shaped by then 😉 But i got to thinking about why i like that i am from Ohio, and came up with a few reasons.
Place makes one different, unique. Most people where i live now are local, several generations back. Place is about childhood memories, and sometimes, a simpler time. Place is about family and holidays. Place is also a regional thing. Midwest, rural, north… climate… cold, on the lake (erie), and weather (tornados). It is about roots, where i was born, and people who resemble me. place physical is connected to place emotional for me.
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While I was wandering on my own in Vienna in 1992, I found Freud’s house. I didn’t tour of the interior, but I was fascinated by the park across the street It occupied a strip about one hundred feet wide between two streets. Freud’s house sat at an informal dividing line. As you looked at the house, to the left the park was manicured and elegant, well-maintained and park-like. At some invisible boundary it morphed into a weedy, overgrown area. I can’t be sure that I saw a couple of discarded booze bottles wrapped in brown paper, but they certainly would have been in character.
The contrast blew me away. What a powerful visual metaphor for Id and Ego. That memory is indelibly stamped on my brain.
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Great visual, ritergal. The way you describe the contrast I can really see it.
reccos, interesting point here from your comment: i still consider myself from Ohio…for me, also, the idea that I have roots…that’s very important to me.
Last night on the trip from Portland, I went via Las Vegas. Sat on the plane next to a couple from Vegas, born there, rooted there. We talked about how rare it was to find a “Las Vegas native.” Same with Phoenix. Some cities have grown so quickly in such a short time, known for a place to make money, get a good job…and they take on a sort of transient feel. Then when you meet someone born there and still there, it’s a surprise, a reminder that many different places are “home.”
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After Natalie asked me the question, “Do you know where Hemingway lived when he lived in Kansas City?” and I had to admit that I didn’t, I did some research begrudgingly. I never like Hemingway much from what I knew of his life. One day I decided to research the question. That research turned into a piece I gave to Nat to read.
If anyone makes it to KC, I will take you to see the five places that Hemingway lived. I learned a lot about Kansas City history and Hemingway doing my research. The three houses where he lived still stand. The one house where he stayed with his second wife while she had a C-section at a local hospital is just as fashionable as it once was. And the one apartment building where he stayed while his wife had another C-section has turned condo.
QuoinMonkey, don’t forget that on the way to Kansas City, people can stop in Hannibal, MO to see Mark Twain’s childhood home which, I think, has been preserved by local groups.
My hometown, St. Joseph, Missouri is where Eugene Field lived and wrote. I have never visited his house and don’t even know if it is still standing. I better remedy that.
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Took some time off yesterday for an art opening in the studio and it’s so gratifying to check in and read all these stories about home and place.
reccos62, so great to read your comment (#3). I didn’t know the piece about Harriet Beecher Stowe living across the street from Twain. I was at a used bookstore yesterday though, and ended up with a book about Twain’s life. I’m kind of excited to read more tidbits like that about him.
Twain didn’t mince words about his subject matter, and wrote about the controversial issues of the day, including slavery, and other social issues that no one else wanted to touch. He wasn’t afraid to get his opinions out there. I haven’t read much about him until now. So I’m looking forward to learning more.
I remember well our conversation about you being from Ohio, the place you call home. I was so surprised at that at the time you mentioned it because it was something I didn’t know about you. And you were so young when you moved — 6 years old.
When I think about my younger brothers and sisters though, and how young they were when we moved from the South, it makes me want to ask them now if they consider the South where they are from? Or Pennsylvania. Or both. I consider myself from a lot of different places now. But my roots are South.
I think where we are born plays a big role in who we become. I like your synopsis at the end of your comment about Place.
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reccos62, wanted to mention, too, I didn’t know you went to Maine a lot. What’s up there that draws you? And if you stop at the Twain place, maybe you’ll consider writing a piece for us about the experience. Love to read your thoughts about it.
ritergal, amazing story about Freud’s home in Vienna. And the contrast in the park – perfect for a psychological analysis! I’d like to see some of the places in Paris someday where many American writers and artists lived, worked, and hung out in the 1920’s and 30’s. Some day.
ybonesy, the transient feel of some cities — some states feel that way, too. When I lived in Montana, I rarely ran into someone born and raised there. The population was small compared to the land mass and it was so beautiful it drew many people from other parts of the country. I imagine it’s even worse today. It doesn’t have the kind of transient feel of somewhere like Vegas though. The roots feel more deeply planted and strong. But the people you meet are from everywhere.
Last night a couple stopped into the art opening and one had a strong British accent. We started talking about Minnesota, how hard it is to make friends when you first move here because nearly EVERYONE is born and raised here or has moved and come back. Then he was telling us about England. What makes people gravitate to certain places away from where they were born? Or go back to where they were born.
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Bob, I want to take you up on that Hemingway tour of Kansas City when we meet in April to write! I can’t wait. I think Teri has been to the Mark Twain home in Hannibal, MO. Isn’t that quite a ways from Kansas City though? Or would it be a place we could stop at driving from Minneapolis to Kansas City?
When Jude was here this year, we drove by Louise Erdrich’s home, a beautiful place, and she talks a little about the home in one of her memoirs and how important the trees surrounding it are to her. After reading what she says about it, actually seeing it is all the better!
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Just a note on Jon Clinch and Finn. I read the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn growing up and I think I might still have the original copy I read from. I kind of want to read it again and then read Finn where Clinch picks up on the story of Huck’s abusive father, and how the story might have continued.
If you think about a project like that, trying to write a kind of familial sequel to something Mark Twain wrote, it seems intimidating in many ways. A challenge, too. But it’s also a kind of homage to Twain.
In one of the links I put in the piece above, Huck Finn’s Father, there are a couple of quotes from Jon Clinch from that interview:
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My hometown is only 30 miles from Twain’s hometown, Hannibal. We went there on school field trips about 10 years straight. It’s a tiny, damp little dwelling, thought here was always nicely kept gardens. I was always most impressed with the apothecary down th street and it hundreds of jars of unusual ingredients.
We also always went to the Mark Twain Cave – which was pretty awesome as a kid. One year, we had a rather large Mom chaperon, and everyone watched out of the corners of our eyes to see if she would be able to squeeze through the one really narrow spot. She did, but it was a tight maneuver – her daughter, also large, chose not to go in the cave. I always felt sorry for the girl – she hung back from a lot of activities because of her weight.
Though in the case of the cave, it was probably a good thing she declined. She out-weighed her ma by maybe 50 pounds. Poor souls!
Yeah, KC is on one side of MO and Hannibal, on the Mississippi of course, is on the St. Louis side. Not close at all.
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Though, thinking about driving to Hannibal. The new 4 lane highway is now completed (just this fall) from St. Paul to St. Louis, amusingly called The Avenue of the Saints. It’s a huge improvement over what once were considered major roads in eastern Iowa/Missouri!
From there you’d shoot straight from St. Louis west to KC — though heading west from Iowa City through Des Moines and then south to KC would be a faster route, I’m thinking. That way gets you nowhere near Hannibal.
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Bo, what does the cave there have to do with Mark Twain or his books? Are they connected? The book I just bought on Twain has a map of all the places he lived and traveled. I think the Hannibal dwelling was when the family was poorer. Then the Hartford place, more at the height of his fame. What a contrast. It seems like he want through a lot of financial changes at different points.
I’m looking forward to the trip to Kansas City, Missouri. I may end up flying, just not sure yet. But if I drive, probably won’t get to Hannibal on that trip. I had no idea about that new 4-lane from St. Paul to St. Louis – The Avenue of Saints. Hah.
More snow coming down in Minnesota. Got to go make some hot soup!
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Oh, Bo, something else you brought up — school field trips to famous places. A kid should only have to go to a place like that once, and somewhere different the next year! I bet something like that can turn kids off to wanting to visit historical places.
Those raised in MN usually get up to Itasca State Park to see the Mississippi Headwaters. But since Liz and I weren’t raised here, it was a whole new treat for us as adults — something we’d never seen. Makes a big difference. Oh, my gosh, the snowflakes just turned HUGE. It’s literally blizzarding where I live.
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Bo, another question (I guess I’m full of questions today), have you ever visited places where any of the photographers you love have done most of their work? I always wanted to visit Yosemite and some of the places where Ansel Adams did his work. So far, I haven’t made it there.
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Ah, QM, the cave just outside of Hannibal is the cave of Injun Joe and Tom Sawyer. You, know, THE cave. Big action scene. It’s just a part of the Twain experience, I suppose, especially if you’re a kid and you’ve had the spit scared out of you reading Tom Sawyer in the middle of the night.
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I’ve been to Yosemite, years ago, before I really did much with a camera. I have one of Ansel Adam’s photography books though, bought it on our trip, and was just thinking how fun it would be to go see what he actually captured on film. But I’ve read of some photographers so hung up on trying to duplicate Ansel Adam’s photos, they go to extremes to get the right time, place, etc. Talk about wasting time and their own talent – why try to make a copy of Adam’s great photos? I do not get that at all.
I’d also love to go to the coast where Weston shot his best – I remember it’s the Pacific, but can’t quite call up the spot – unless it’s Point Lobos? Yeah, I think that’s the area. I’ve never been to that part of the country – it’s on my list. (My very, very long list.) Hope I live to be a 100! Ha!
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Oh, that explains the cave. I’d probably like that. I did go spelunking once but probably never again. At least I can say I did it!
Yes, Edward Weston, I think it was Point Lobos but my memory’s fuzzy on it, too.
Hey, if you want to see a good movie about Weston’s life, see Eloquent Nude. I did a post on it last year. It’s about his early years with Charis Wilson. Come to find out one of our readers and fellow bloggers, heather at anuvue, worked for a time with Brett Weston, Edward’s oldest son.
She mentions it in the comments in the post. And there are some good Weston legacy links there, too.
Here’s the link:
Eloquent Nude At The Riverview (LINK)
I’d like to visit Wildcat Hill (the place Edward Weston and Charis Wilson built) and a few other of those places some day.
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Oh, Bo, about your comment on people duplicating Ansel Adams work (#17) by photographing the exact places and compositions that he did, I’ve known photographers, too, who have taken that to the extreme. Like you, I do think it would be fun to visit some of the places Ansel Adams shot in the photographs and kind of compare them. But I’m not interested in duplicating them.
You know, we did study Ansel Adams work when I was in art school so that we could understand the Zone System of photography. He was the expert in Zone, so we would look at and break down the gray scale in amazingly detailed ways.
So in that way, it was like copying the masters in painting to learn how to paint. If someone was re-photographing Ansel’s compositions for that purpose, they might be able to learn something about black & white photography from that. I tend to be a more spontaneous kind of photographer though. But it was helpful to learn the Zone System by seeing how he worked with it.
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I went to Hannibal about a year ago. After pining to go there for years, one day I just got in my car and started driving south.
I loved it–Twain’s boyhood home, the Mississippi, the cave tour, the decidedly “southern” feel of the town (compared to Minnesota, that is), and the loyalty of the town to Twain’s memory. But for me, the far greater treat was going to Florida, Missouri, where Twain was born and spend the first four years of his life. I remember it taking about an hour (or so) to drive there from Hannibal; Bo and Bob could probably confirm that. They have the two-room cabin where Twain was born within the Visitor’s Center. I sat and looked at it for the longest time. From the humblest of roots came such a writer.
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I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and those of Huck Finn out loud to Em now and again (they’re hard books to read out loud—the accent and the way things were said, so we pick them up when we’re between other novels), and I’d love to see where Clemens/Twain was born. The cave—wow, fun.
QM, I agree, for kids, seems like doing that once is the right amount—let them go back when they’re grown up and know what they’re looking for.
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