Day 21: The Walter Anderson Museum

(I have been away from a computer for the last 2 nights, but I am copying my hand written entries so I can preserve them by electronically filing them.)

We visited the Walter Anderson museum today and it was amazing. Walter Anderson was one with a great ability to perceive! He could see the world in it glory and its beauty... and without needing to understand it all, he could mirror it in art. There are two general concepts in almost every piece of work he did that I saw today: upward motion and continuity. Everything was connected. If the canvas did not end neither would the picture. Like all art, there are many things you can observe and so many things to say and see, but quite honestly the greatest observation I could articulate is that Walter Anderson saw beauty in its rawest, most primitive way, and his work, whether he intended it or not, is worship! Everything seemed to speak out some unspoken thankfulness and awe. Everything was so much bigger than he thought of himself. God is so present in all of his works and I wonder how aware of that Walter Anderson was... does he know what life he saw?

They say he had a nervous breakdown. I can't help but wonder if it was because he could see the beauty of life, of glory and of God and he could paint it... and most of the world could not. Most fo the world could not perceive the optimism of creation and so he always battled...

I can only imagine the look his face when he stepped into the gates of heaven. I bet he wished he could have brought his paints! I hope he knew then...

Another interesting observation I had was that in Walter Anderson's full room art, he never could find good things to paint on the ceilings. The beauty he saw was around him, not when he looked up. I thought to myself, "my ceilings would be covered with bright things"... his were not.

Also... the window and door frames are never a part of the works in his room art. Rather he paints them as tricked out borders to what is beyond them... as if he were simply framing the art work of the creation visible through them. He had such an appreciation and reverance for God's creation and beauty.

On the door wall leading in to the last room we saw (the "little room" they call it), there is a psalm hung up that Walter Anderson wrote on a shabby peice of notebook paper. When you enter the room it is bright and full of life and joy and beauty and hope and greatfulness... it is the psalms, painted! Walter Anderson worshipped God with his art and his paint, like David with his music and his dancing.

It was a beautiful and powerful experience to witness the worship of Walter Anderson's life.

My prayer: That I could live out life much as Walter Anderson could see it. That I would live deeply and gratefully and fill the walls of my life with worship and praise of God's beauty, mercy and grace!