PART 5 OF 5 THE NOT-SO-QUIET ADVENTURE
ABOVE - Olson’s
cabin was located at the northern end of the fox farm. From the cabin site
there is a trail east to the lake. This side of the lake is the small pool
where Olson and the Kent’s got their fresh water. There are some freshets that
come down from the mountain into the lake, but today the pool and the lake are
much more brackish than they were in Kent's day, probably due to the drop in land after the 1964
earthquake. Capra photo.
NOTE– I’ll call
this Part 5 of 5 of an expanded version of the lecture I delivered at the
Anchorage (Alaska) Museum of History and Art on Nov. 9, 2018 as part of a
one-day Rockwell Kent Symposium. But from this point on the entries are really
just a continuation of the article as I continue to expand it.
If you’ve reading
this website you realize there is much more the story that’s contained on this
website. I’ve tried to incorporate some of that information in this draft, but
I advise those interested to check out this entire website for fuller context. The
article focuses on the emotional baggage Rockwell brought to Alaska using
various sources, especially his letters to his amour Hildegarde and his wife,
Kathleen – and Kathleen’s letters to him. Kent can escape into the wilderness.
There is the “quiet adventure.” But he can escape neither himself nor his
demons. Beneath the surface of his book
is…
THE NOT-SO-QUIET
ADVENTURE
Rockwell Kent in
Alaska 1918-1919
by Doug Capra ©
2019
PART 5 OF 5
BELOW -- These were among the oldest sourdoughs in Alaska when the Pioneers organization met in Seward in 1916. Olson is standing at right.
Olson
leaves for Seward on January 2, 1919 to pick up the mail. Kent and Rockie
expect him back in a few days. It will be 38 days before he returns on February
11th – a time of not only uncertainty and concern, but also wonder
and artistic productivity What has happened to Olson? For all Kent knows, Olson
is sick or dead. But then, Kent does have friends in Seward and someone is sure
to notified him – like Thomas Hawkins who finances the fox farming venture on
the island. But maybe Olson died one night in his small cabin in Seward and
nobody even knows about it yet. Eventually Kent and Rockie accept their
isolation and lack of mail. And -- the dynamics of the letter writing changes
dramatically for both Rockwell and Kathleen.
First
there’s Kathleen letter writing: After she reads on New Year’s Eve – their 10th
anniversary -- those two sincere and loving letters Kent as sent to her through
Carl Zigrosser and George Chappell – she regains hope for their marriage.
Beginning on January 2nd, her letters to Rockwell become more
frequent, longer and more loving. Of course, he won’t receive those until Olson
returns on February 11th.
Second
there’s Kent's letter writing. I always wondered why there were no Kent letters
to Kathleen during this period. We find the answer in a letter Kent writes to
Kathleen on Feb. 13th, two days after Olson returns from Seward with
a batch of letters from her. He writes: “Olson left on the 2nd
of January. We expected his return on the 4th. So much hung upon
your letters that I felt to write in the meantime would be useless even if more
days elapsed. I was deeply depressed. In the letters I had sent you I had put
so much love and hope and excluded so much doubt and sorry that a reaction
overwhelmed me. I past (sic) the days in absolute idleness, mourning, passing the
shore looking toward Seward, counting the hours. And then at last, after the
lapse of many days, I roused myself. Whether you loved me or not I said that I
would live. I began to draw.”
Why
write to Kathleen? He reasoned. I emptied my heart out into the anniversary
letters and, until I get a response from her either believing or rejecting me,
what’s the use? Kent continued: “All day and every night I worked with all my
power. A little recreation with Rockwell was all I allowed myself, all there
was to be had in fact. And I put you utterly out of my thoughts. I lived
without a woman in my life. I draw only men. I wrote from time to time a letter
to Carl, my Rock of faith here, and that was always a relief.”
At
this point, Carl Zigrosser is perhaps his closest friend, the only person he
can write to about his art, politics and culture – topics that will get “women”
and Kathleen off is mind. Another close friend, George Chappell, is suspect in his mind. He's written a disturbing letter to him and will receive a response when Olson returns. Kent goes into a kind of trance during these days of isolation without Olson: “Once in a while I’d
think of you coldly in a far off way, sometimes I was sad. On the whole I did
not live. I worked. And I accomplished a great deal. All the drawings I shall
send you so that you can see. And then at last came Olson and your letters! –
That period of my work is ended. I think I shall draw us more. My nights and
part of my days shall be for your letters. Count each day’s writing as work at
least the value of one drawing. And love the letters more for that.”
To
get into an artist’s mind – note what Kent says -- that each letter he writes
to Kathleen is worth a drawing. His art is his life. Taking the time to write a
letter – and his letters to her are long – could be used to paint or draw. This
is no doubt why criticizes her for what he considers her short, hurried letters to him – and
why he is enthralled and delighted when – after Olson returns on Feb. 11th
-- he begins receiving batches of long
and loving letters from his wife. His letters to her represent portions of his
creativity that he could be using to produce art. He tries to convince her
that, even with their disturbing attacks and criticism, the letters embody his
love for her.
Back
in New York City in early January 1919, Kathleen goes on a letter writing
binge. Although she doesn’t compose one every day as she promises, she does
write frequent and long letters describing her outings, the children, and hopes
for their marriage. She also does what Kent has asked – she rereads all his
past letters from Alaska and confronts the questions he is asking her. This
causes her much reflection and opens old wounds, but there’s less anger and
more honest reflection – and as we’ll see – that encourages Kent’s responses to
be much the same. They are trying to reconcile. Kathleen tells him that someone sends her friend, Polly
Steele, box seats at the Aeolian Hall in the city to hear chamber music and the
two women enjoy a night out for the third time.
BELOW -- From the New York Times, August. 19, 1912, p.3.
“Polly is certainly being good to me,”
Kathleen tells Kent in a Jan. 9th letter. A musician friend from
Boston is playing in New York and Kathleen is having a tea for her. She joins
her friend Bernice at her Eurhythmics classes -- expressive movement and
dancing – for education, performance art, and therapy, also used in anthroposophic
medicine. “It was very interesting and cheered us both up,” she writes.
BELOW -- First image, from the Eugene (Oregon) Morning Register, March 5, 1916. Second image, from the Green Bay (Wisconsin) Press-Gazette, May 5, 1916.
Kent’s
daughter Clara and his Auntie Joe are sick. There are always concerns about the
influenza epidemic. Kathleen writes that Mrs. Theodore Wagner wants to know
prices on some of Kent’s paintings. Her husband is interested. Not long before
Kent left for Alaska, the couple had commissioned him to produce a handmade,
illustrated book as a memorial to their young daughter who had recently died.
Now her husband is considering financial support to keep Kent in Alaska, up to
$2000. Kathleen knows Margaret Sanger and goes to visit her but she isn’t in.
Her trial is coming up for publishing an article advocating birth control vs.
abortion. Now in New York without being under her husbands control, with the support of her friends, socializing within some of her husbands art world -- Kathleen is exposed to more the progressive world of the avant guard.
About
this time she writes that frank letter I quoted earlier about her life’s disappointments,
regretting that now nearing 30-years-old she’s hasn’t achieved her dreams. When
Kent marries her in 1909 she is talented musician and singer. Now that she’s in
New York and often experiencing Broadway and the cabarets, she’s wondering
where life might have taken her had she not married and had all these children.This elicits an extraordinarily sensitive and honest letter from Kent – and in a future entry I’ll
publish Kathleen’s letter and Kent’s response, which clearly demonstrates how he
has changed, how the two are more honest with each other, and trying to put their marriage back together again.
NEXT
ENTRY – Kent and Rockie’s life on Fox Island between the time Olson leaves on
Jan. 2, 1919 and his return on Feb. 11th.
Comments
Post a Comment