Panel text reads:
I RETURNED TO BLACK MOUNTAIN FOR THE SECOND YEAR AFTER PUTTING IN THE SUMMER WORKing in the Alaskan salmon fishing. I had flown from Alaska to Seattle, and hitch-hiked from Seattle to Black Mountain in a record five days. I went immediately to the loft in the men's lodge where I had slept the year before. Actually I was to have the good fortune to be housed shortly thereafter in an army surplus barracks which we reconstructed and named 'deep south' which was just a little way north of the lodges. I shared a room with Art Penn for the rest of my stay at BMC.
I was greeted in the loft by a charming, young Hungarian named Peter Nemenyi, who had just written a paper for a summer class, which he asked me to read, even before I had a chance to take a shower. He had to turn it in immediately, already late, but he had been unable to remember the name of the Irish poet whom he was writing about. I ascertained that the subject of his essay was William Butler Yeats by the second paragraph. He had left blanks where he intended to fill in the name. Was I sure it was spelled that way? I was later to learn that he usually knitted during lectures, played the piano each morning before breakfast, took a tutorial in math with Max Dehn, and favored such words as 'vacuum'. and 'continuum'.
I even had a private study that second Fall. The first year. The first year I had been obliged to share a study with Julius something. (I seem to have blocked remembering his last name.) I had arrived before him, been assigned a study, and had decided that I would occupy it with only grass matts, Zen style. I had lived that way for a few days before Julius arrived, but after he arrived I was asked to share it with him. He decided to build a desk full length of the room, and shelves full length of the other wall to house his comprehensive library of Marxist literature. His wife, not a student, was his secretary, and was present even more of the time than he was. They were outraged, because I was always drawing nudes--without even a model to copy. How did I know what nudes looked like? I explained that I had attended an art school before being drafted into the Army Air Force.
t w o
After a while I had gotten pretty well acquainted, and Dick Amero offered to share his study with me, a much more amicable agreement. Dick wasn't interested particularly in modern art, but I was fairly literate. We took Rondthaler's class together. The first semester we studied classical utopian literature. As I
recall we read Plutarch's 'Lycurgus', Campanella's 'City of the Sun', Thomas More's 'Utopia', Butler's 'Erehwon', William Morris's 'News From Nowhere', and a book by Bellamy, the title of which I don't remember, probably because I didn't reaD IT. [sic] The second semester we were to do a study on some mutualistic community, and each student was to present that study for a class that semester. Dick and I, (and Francis Foster, though he wasn't in the class), made a trip to Kentucky at Easter, first to Berea College, which, like Black Mountain, had a work program; Berea catered to educating students from the Appalachians. Then we went to Gethsemane, a Trappist Monestary [sic] near Bardstown. The poet Thomas Merton was a monk there, and we were familiar with his prereligious poetry, which was reminiscent of Lorca. They received us very cordially, though we were not Catholics. The services were entirely in Gregorian Chant, and took up practically the whole church. The audience sat in a small balcony at one end. They were doing penance for the sins of the world. The Trappists are silent, except for the chant. Only the Abbot, and friars who direct the work crews,may speak. A French Abbot, who was the head of the order, had arrived from Rome. He had spent the war in Japan as the Abbot of a monestary [sic] there. He spent part of each day explaining everything to us. When we departed they gave us a large loaf of bread, rye, as I recall, and some of their hard cheese, and they refused to receive money from us--we were pilgrims sent by God, they said. The Trappists are not cloistered, but share a large dormitory. They bathe, and change their habit only once a year. The class was amazed by our report.
My closest friends at Black Mountain, aside from Penn and Amero, were Kenneth Noland, Gregory Masurovsky, and my teacher Ilya Bolotowsky. I believe that I got to know everyone who was there who was there at that time.
Knute Stiles
I RETURNED TO BLACK MOUNTAIN FOR THE SECOND YEAR AFTER PUTTING IN THE SUMMER WORKing in the Alaskan salmon fishing. I had flown from Alaska to Seattle, and hitch-hiked from Seattle to Black Mountain in a record five days. I went immediately to the loft in the men's lodge where I had slept the year before. Actually I was to have the good fortune to be housed shortly thereafter in an army surplus barracks which we reconstructed and named 'deep south' which was just a little way north of the lodges. I shared a room with Art Penn for the rest of my stay at BMC.
I was greeted in the loft by a charming, young Hungarian named Peter Nemenyi, who had just written a paper for a summer class, which he asked me to read, even before I had a chance to take a shower. He had to turn it in immediately, already late, but he had been unable to remember the name of the Irish poet whom he was writing about. I ascertained that the subject of his essay was William Butler Yeats by the second paragraph. He had left blanks where he intended to fill in the name. Was I sure it was spelled that way? I was later to learn that he usually knitted during lectures, played the piano each morning before breakfast, took a tutorial in math with Max Dehn, and favored such words as 'vacuum'. and 'continuum'.
I even had a private study that second Fall. The first year. The first year I had been obliged to share a study with Julius something. (I seem to have blocked remembering his last name.) I had arrived before him, been assigned a study, and had decided that I would occupy it with only grass matts, Zen style. I had lived that way for a few days before Julius arrived, but after he arrived I was asked to share it with him. He decided to build a desk full length of the room, and shelves full length of the other wall to house his comprehensive library of Marxist literature. His wife, not a student, was his secretary, and was present even more of the time than he was. They were outraged, because I was always drawing nudes--without even a model to copy. How did I know what nudes looked like? I explained that I had attended an art school before being drafted into the Army Air Force.
t w o
After a while I had gotten pretty well acquainted, and Dick Amero offered to share his study with me, a much more amicable agreement. Dick wasn't interested particularly in modern art, but I was fairly literate. We took Rondthaler's class together. The first semester we studied classical utopian literature. As I
recall we read Plutarch's 'Lycurgus', Campanella's 'City of the Sun', Thomas More's 'Utopia', Butler's 'Erehwon', William Morris's 'News From Nowhere', and a book by Bellamy, the title of which I don't remember, probably because I didn't reaD IT. [sic] The second semester we were to do a study on some mutualistic community, and each student was to present that study for a class that semester. Dick and I, (and Francis Foster, though he wasn't in the class), made a trip to Kentucky at Easter, first to Berea College, which, like Black Mountain, had a work program; Berea catered to educating students from the Appalachians. Then we went to Gethsemane, a Trappist Monestary [sic] near Bardstown. The poet Thomas Merton was a monk there, and we were familiar with his prereligious poetry, which was reminiscent of Lorca. They received us very cordially, though we were not Catholics. The services were entirely in Gregorian Chant, and took up practically the whole church. The audience sat in a small balcony at one end. They were doing penance for the sins of the world. The Trappists are silent, except for the chant. Only the Abbot, and friars who direct the work crews,may speak. A French Abbot, who was the head of the order, had arrived from Rome. He had spent the war in Japan as the Abbot of a monestary [sic] there. He spent part of each day explaining everything to us. When we departed they gave us a large loaf of bread, rye, as I recall, and some of their hard cheese, and they refused to receive money from us--we were pilgrims sent by God, they said. The Trappists are not cloistered, but share a large dormitory. They bathe, and change their habit only once a year. The class was amazed by our report.
My closest friends at Black Mountain, aside from Penn and Amero, were Kenneth Noland, Gregory Masurovsky, and my teacher Ilya Bolotowsky. I believe that I got to know everyone who was there who was there at that time.
Knute Stiles
Artwork: 1995.62.1
I Returned to Black Mountain...
1995
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 Knute Stiles
Knute Stiles, I Returned to Black Mountain..., 1995. Printed paper on foam board. Collection of Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. Gift of the artist.
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