Beginning in 1947 and continuing until his death in 1965, Walter Inglis Anderson made regular twelve-mile trips from the Mississippi coast to a long barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico. He paddled solo in a small skiff, bringing along a few survival necessities and art supplies. On Horn Island, he lived out in the open, furiously painting and drawing and resting a mind tormented by schizophrenia. At night, he flipped his boat over and crawled underneath it to sleep. At the end of a few weeks or months, he turned the boat back to the mainland and returned to his family, carrying a stack of wildly emotional renderings of the birds, animals, vegetation, and elements that made up life in his rough camp. These journeys may have saved Anderson’s life. They also, it turns out, may have saved the memory of a lost place; the cluster of barrier islands that includes Horn Island was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina. 10 Church St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-624-7083; www.bellmuseum.org
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