My Enchanted "End of the World"
Two summer weeks in 1990 at Bennington art camp, with my camera and a notebook
While rummaging through boxes you haven’t opened since you moved from Louisiana in 1994, I wouldn’t recommend reading any of your old diaries. Of course, I did, and now the only thing to do is to share one with you.
In August 1990, I was a young mother and wife when, uncharacteristically, I decided to go to Bennington College art camp for two week-long classes.
In Louisiana I worked for a decor artist, inking and printing her etchings, and now I wanted to learn how to create my own plates. I had registered for two classes, including monoprints. I think both were held in the same studio with the large presses.
In my suitcase along with my work apron and camera, I packed a notebook where the top of each page was blank for drawings, and the bottom was lined for writing. I still have my daily journal and the photos I took there.
At the College, my dorm room was number 16 on the second floor of Leigh, not far from the Commons Building. I opened the old wood-frame window and put away my things.
On Sunday I wrote —
As I make this space my own, I think of my dorm rooms at Syracuse University. After 25 years I still dream of wandering that campus, searching for my dorm or a classroom. Here, I have another chance to find them.
The studios are several buildings away. Paul Shore is a young instructor with a straightforward yet humorous manner. In class, he says, we will make “evolving” zinc plate images, to be changed during the week.
I decide my subject will be a woman’s life showing her relationships with others and her dominant moods. This evening, I beveled my first zinc plate and then went to my room.
Over the next ten days I photographed every outdoor sculpture on campus that I could find.
Monday -
This evening, I drew from a live model for the first time, and when she moved and I couldn’t see her any more, I drew the student between us.
Met a viola player today and later talked with a woman from The Village Voice about New York City and how this workshop is good for “getting you to go public with your first efforts & failures.” She says, “We all share the same progressions.”
Tuesday -
At the evening program an instructor shows slides of his jewelry, “precious things in small enclosures”. He says, “Precious things now are not so much gems as, for example, a shell, something from nature.”
Another instructor says he disciplines himself to think of at least one new idea a day and writes it down.
Wednesday -
Everyone is talking about the Mideast war today.
Paul looked at my monoprints & liked one & explained the need for both structure & looseness. The image should invite a 2nd look, he said, and not appear “too easy or experimental”.
He showed us his prints, 3 handmade books, & a “wallet prints” series called “Whisperings”. One whispering was from a teacher who advised him to consider what the art piece is for, where it is intended to go, before making it.
Had lunch with a Chinese Canadian woman investment banker.
Thursday —
Today in The Barn I sat on a folding chair on a small balcony, looking down on an audience made up of musicians and heard the speaker, a pianist, make musicians’ jokes. He wore plaid shorts with a white undershirt and, I heard later, was “heavy handed”.
Then I walked further up the hill to a stone building where two groups of musicians could be heard through open windows. I sat under a tree, looking down over a large meadow and listening to this practice of musical endings, without applause.
At dinner I learned that in the 1930s the modern dancer Martha Graham was a Bennington instructor, and in the ‘40s Helen Frankenthaler studied painting here.
Friday -
Last day for printmaking. Paul says that if your print is a failure, print over it to try to improve it. Don’t be safe and satisfied. Push it a step further till it’s the best it can be. If you ruin it, so what? You were going to throw it out anyway.
I feel inspired to go deeper and to do my best. I am happy.
The weekend —
Paulette tells me about her recent visit to Frida Kahlo’s house in Mexico City. Kahlo’s overwhelming sense of decoration — ribbons, birds (?) and small Mexican jars — all painted on the kitchen wall with “Frida and Diego”. She saw her bedroom & bed & painted corset. Saw Diego’s studio 2 miles away, where he built her a studio, up stairs and nearly inaccessible.
Have dinner with two families at a big table, and meet a Chinese grandmother who is with her 2-year-old grandson while her daughter and son-in-law take a tai-chi workshop.
Today, reading my diary in 2025, I see that my second class at Bennington was not as successful as the first. But a lot was going on. It says,
I go to hear a faculty chamber music concert. Sit next to a flute player who is knitting. Clarinetist rushes out of the room after 1st movement — to go get 3rd movement music sheets, he explains.
200 tai-chi people will arrive tomorrow.
Monday —
I see now that this second week I was low on creative energy, surrounded by “too many materials, too many methods & too many people”. Returning home was beginning to be on my mind. I wrote,
I want a little house made of wood next to a field with seasons and all the creatures & plants that go with a life in the natural world.
Collected more pebbles today at the stream.
I’m having a good time making collages with red, darkness, houses, moody — combining what’s “allowed” here with whatever ideas I’ve stored up inside.
Tonight, the slideshows were pottery, & some rosebush paintings by a truly flaky young woman.
Tuesday-Friday —
Tired & a little crowded, unfocused & discouraged by 4:00 p.m. Walked up music hill, nice woods path, corn field, many musical sounds from Jennings Music Building’s open windows — while a mower in the front meadow was cutting large swaths. Down came the purple, yellow, blue & pink flowers & the golden grasses.
At lunch I learn that if no star pianist is available, the orchestra tunes to a bassoon. I was the only audience this afternoon at a trio rehearsal, all young women, and the coach sat next to me to chat. “That’s a nice ending,” said the cellist. I walked back to art class refreshed.
The current studio talk is about materials, methods, marks, space and surface. Etching ink under my fingernails. I complain to Paulette, “They’re making origami boxes on the paper cutter & I can’t tear my print paper.”
We finally have a class critique, a waste of time.
Friday evening —
In the pottery yard I watch as a bowl is tonged from the flaming trash can into a water tub, then 20 minutes later see the potter put it in the art show. All the pots are a big success.
There’s a concert tonight with all the students. From the art studio I see the lights in the big stone music building on the hill. Walking up the dark road, I can hear music. Here, it’s light & music & friendship among the musicians. At the top of the hill, I look back down across the newly mown meadow & see the little light in the pottery yard.
After the symphony I walk back in the dark with my flashlight. I go to the print room alone, pack up, & then make an ink inventory, my clean-up chore.
In my room by 11:30 p.m. Pack suitcase & bags. Bed by 1:30 a.m.
Thanks Deda. I have never been to art camp but I have been to Bennington, many times. Bennington being on the way from our upstate NY home to my parents house in NH. Always got a milkshake at the Dairy Bar just west of town (NY 7 or VT 9). Summer in New England was always, for me, magical. The air, the light, the rocks and the trees and the water......... I loved that you articulated back then that you wanted "a life in the natural world". Me too.
We become who we are by what we seek out and allow ourselves to experience in life...and honoring the urge to learn and grow is, for me, a most wonderful and reliable guide...