Panel text reads:
Black Mountain College before High School
My memories of Black Mountain College are a mixture of facts, written material on Black Mountain, myths and legends, and my father's stories.
I was at Black Mountain College during its first four years. Life at Black Mountain College was a definite change from the normal nuclear family relationship of father, mother, and brother in a single-family house where the father left every day for work and the mother kept house.
In the first year everybody–faculty and students-lived, worked, studied, socialized, and quarreled in Robert E. Lee Hall, which was big enough to house all of us. Meals were taken together in the dining hall behind Robert E. Lee Hall. Later cottages were winterized for families, but we still ate in the dining hall.
Of all the places to start a new college with progressive views, the founders of the College selected a site in the South, in the Bible Belt, near a small conservative town, at a religious conference center. There was not much in common between College and the Town, and Black Mountain College quickly developed a reputation for being a godless bastion of free love and who knows what else.
There were not many other children at BMC. There was Mary Rice, who was older but a great leader in our games. She could transform a piece of junk into a reenactment of Mutiny on the Bounty. There were the Moellenhoff sisters, who arrived speaking German, but Andrea was to learn English much faster than her older sister. The Knickerbocker daughter was at BMC for one year. And then there were the Dreier boys and my own brother Dan. Frank Rice was really old; he was in high school already.
We went to school in the town of Black Mountain, but since we were bussed or driven, we didn't have much opportunity to play with the local children after school. Most of my close childhood friends were in Highlands where we spent summers.
One year a school was established for us in one of the cottages on campus. I remember a non-juvenile book which I had to read. It was not easy reading, but I can summarize the contents to this day. It was about changing the flow of the river around Chicago. I also remember hitting my brother and drawing blood. I am still amazed that I was merely dismissed from school for the day with no punishment or reprimand. That had never happened before or after.
The class I do remember was Albers' introductory drawing class. The way I recollect it, we spent hours drawing lines and block letters. I can still draw those letters of the alphabet. I also recall sitting on the porch of Robert E. Lee Hall as a model and getting my first anatomy lesson in the proportions of a child's face.
Stephen Forbes was the pied piper of the campus children. He was not far removed from childhood himself, but to us he was old. Twice as old! Apparently, he had not handled money in his childhood, and when he came to Black Mountain as a student, he had money in his pockets for the first time. When he bought something, he bought two, but he never gave any of his purchases to us kids. Rather, he would round us up to watch the construction of one of his projects. He built a generator which used the flow of a creek to light an electric bulb.
There was entertainment in the evenings after dinner. My memory of these activities is sketchy, or maybe my mother packed us off to bed on the assumption that the play was not appropriate for children, or adults did not appreciate little kids running around. My mother had rather firm ideas about family discipline.
My father, F.R. Georgia, resigned from Black Mountain College after four years, and I entered high school in Highlands.
After the war, my father and I visited Nell Rice at Lake Eden. While she told us stories of the ups and downs of the College and the concerts and visiting artists with enthusiasm, there was also a note of tiredness, for she had been with the College from the beginning and was to be there almost to the end. She was a remarkable person.
When I retired and returned to Highlands I met Bob Padgett, a retired forest ranger. Born and raised in Black Mountain, Bob shared with me a common past in the grade school. He seemed proud that the college had been part of his hometown. If Bob represents a change in community attitude toward BMC, then I should put aside memories of my father's stories of the squabbles, rifts, and upheavals. Instead, I should remember Black Mountain College for the very real accomplishments of a small group of people who made art, music, dance and literature.
Nathalie Georgia Sato, August 1995
Black Mountain College before High School
My memories of Black Mountain College are a mixture of facts, written material on Black Mountain, myths and legends, and my father's stories.
I was at Black Mountain College during its first four years. Life at Black Mountain College was a definite change from the normal nuclear family relationship of father, mother, and brother in a single-family house where the father left every day for work and the mother kept house.
In the first year everybody–faculty and students-lived, worked, studied, socialized, and quarreled in Robert E. Lee Hall, which was big enough to house all of us. Meals were taken together in the dining hall behind Robert E. Lee Hall. Later cottages were winterized for families, but we still ate in the dining hall.
Of all the places to start a new college with progressive views, the founders of the College selected a site in the South, in the Bible Belt, near a small conservative town, at a religious conference center. There was not much in common between College and the Town, and Black Mountain College quickly developed a reputation for being a godless bastion of free love and who knows what else.
There were not many other children at BMC. There was Mary Rice, who was older but a great leader in our games. She could transform a piece of junk into a reenactment of Mutiny on the Bounty. There were the Moellenhoff sisters, who arrived speaking German, but Andrea was to learn English much faster than her older sister. The Knickerbocker daughter was at BMC for one year. And then there were the Dreier boys and my own brother Dan. Frank Rice was really old; he was in high school already.
We went to school in the town of Black Mountain, but since we were bussed or driven, we didn't have much opportunity to play with the local children after school. Most of my close childhood friends were in Highlands where we spent summers.
One year a school was established for us in one of the cottages on campus. I remember a non-juvenile book which I had to read. It was not easy reading, but I can summarize the contents to this day. It was about changing the flow of the river around Chicago. I also remember hitting my brother and drawing blood. I am still amazed that I was merely dismissed from school for the day with no punishment or reprimand. That had never happened before or after.
The class I do remember was Albers' introductory drawing class. The way I recollect it, we spent hours drawing lines and block letters. I can still draw those letters of the alphabet. I also recall sitting on the porch of Robert E. Lee Hall as a model and getting my first anatomy lesson in the proportions of a child's face.
Stephen Forbes was the pied piper of the campus children. He was not far removed from childhood himself, but to us he was old. Twice as old! Apparently, he had not handled money in his childhood, and when he came to Black Mountain as a student, he had money in his pockets for the first time. When he bought something, he bought two, but he never gave any of his purchases to us kids. Rather, he would round us up to watch the construction of one of his projects. He built a generator which used the flow of a creek to light an electric bulb.
There was entertainment in the evenings after dinner. My memory of these activities is sketchy, or maybe my mother packed us off to bed on the assumption that the play was not appropriate for children, or adults did not appreciate little kids running around. My mother had rather firm ideas about family discipline.
My father, F.R. Georgia, resigned from Black Mountain College after four years, and I entered high school in Highlands.
After the war, my father and I visited Nell Rice at Lake Eden. While she told us stories of the ups and downs of the College and the concerts and visiting artists with enthusiasm, there was also a note of tiredness, for she had been with the College from the beginning and was to be there almost to the end. She was a remarkable person.
When I retired and returned to Highlands I met Bob Padgett, a retired forest ranger. Born and raised in Black Mountain, Bob shared with me a common past in the grade school. He seemed proud that the college had been part of his hometown. If Bob represents a change in community attitude toward BMC, then I should put aside memories of my father's stories of the squabbles, rifts, and upheavals. Instead, I should remember Black Mountain College for the very real accomplishments of a small group of people who made art, music, dance and literature.
Nathalie Georgia Sato, August 1995
Artwork: 1995.55.1
Black Mountain College before High School
1995
Photographs and printed paper on foam board
This work was created for the 1995 exhibition Remembering Black Mountain College curated by Mary Emma Harris in conjunction with Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and the BMC alumni reunion organized by Mary Holden Thompson, founding director of BMCM+AC.
24 x 18 inches
In copyright
Gift of Nathalie Georgia Sato
Nathalie Georgia Sato, Black Mountain College before High School, 1995. Photographs and printed paper on foam board. Collection of Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. Gift of the artist.
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