"Quaker Puffed Wheat, Shot From Guns!"

January 28, 2009 - The Anderson Center

Sitting on the desk in front of me are three small composition books, resident’s logs for this particular room of this particularly wonderful house.

“6/30/2000
This room is magical. This room doth makéd one to forget hearth, family (and modern English verb forms). If prisons had rooms like this, people would commit heinous crimes to spend the rest of their lives here. If monastery cells were like this room, there would be mass conversions and vows of celibacy.”

“6/11/03 My schedule for the day:
6:15: Greet new day w/ dawn stretches.
7:15: Put clothes back on.
8-12: Insert and remove comma.
12-2: Eat cookies.
2-2:15: Pick crumbs from shirtfront.
2:15-6: Work on ‘Satirical Sketches.’ Perfect smirk.
6-7:30: Flirt.
7:30-7:45: Pick crumbs from shirtfront.
8-12: Patrol house w/ candle in hand.
12-8: Sleep the sleep of the righteous - why?”

“Sept 1-30, 2008
Your moment has arrived - for peace, pleasure, and productivity. Enjoy, honor, and relish your art and each other in this wondrous place. Each day will surpass your expectations.”

“1-16-2009
In the depths of winter - the coldest days in years - minus 20 at 11 am! But sunny. Everything is covered with gently mounded snow. The birch branch out the window has a 3” layer of snow. The window has an array of intricately linked lacey [sic] crystals. Despite the cold, it’s toasty warm at the desk. The sun pours in the front windows.”

In a couple of days, it will be my turn to add to the pages of experience bound within these books, within these walls too. The walls once belonged to A.P. Anderson, a man best known for the invention of a puffing process that gave us puffed cereal. With his puffed wheat fortunes he built this estate, a beautiful red brick complex just upriver of Red Wing. Today the estate is an arts center providing retreat for writers, painters, photographers, sculptors, musicians, and dancers. Some come for a couple of days, others for a couple of months. The Anderson residence provides living space while the other buildings on the campus house studios, galleries, and even an alternative high school.

The house is beautiful. Tall ceilings, elegant design, luminous hardwood floors, and an abundance of natural light. J.D. and I are the only ones staying here this week, having all seven bedrooms, the library, and both staircases to ourselves. An antique mechanical horse sits heavily in the entry way; a horse sculpted of mechanical antiques rears powerfully in the yard. Artwork, old photographs, and antique advertisements for puffed cereal hang on the walls. Deck chairs quietly hibernate in their stacks on the screened porch. Creaks and scuffles haunt the halls at night, just an aging house or the echos of a ghostly resident? It is a peaceful place, a comfortable place, and in the quiet darkness of night, an occasionally eerie place.

Outside standing like a watchful sentry is a brick water tower. Entering its icy door reveals a winding staircase leading up to a small room. In the summer, when the windows aren't frosted over and the temperature is closer to 80 than 0, this room would be ideal for getting away. Here its easy to find refuge, high above the daily demands of foot against earth, pen against paper, hurt against heart. Outside the room is a balcony, now covered with snow, but still affording a panaromic view of the dormant, icy land. I wouldn't mind living with a view like this.

We've only a few more days here at the Anderson Center. I can’t say that the words of prior guests ring true with me, but I can understand what they mean. Perhaps someday I will have a reason to return to this place and experience what countless artists before me have experienced. For now, however, I am content to spend a cold week here working with kids, shuffling about the mansion, and holding my breath in anticipation of seeing a ghost. Perhaps by the end of the week I will also be able to put my pen to the composition book and write: I worked hard, ate well, and slept in the history/legacy of Red Wing. This is “Art rejuvenation.”