Ramblings about life and art in the outback of Nebraska

In December 2018, I discovered the wonders of literary tourism as I met my mother and sister in Red Cloud, Nebraska to research for a show with Impact Nebraska Artists inspired by writings and life of Willa Cather. The trip made me want to go to Key West and stay in Hemingway quarters, and to Missouri to see where Tom Sawyer was written, and to Concord, Massachusetts where Alcott wrote "Little Women." Toni Morrisons' hometown of Lorain, Ohio has several sites mentioned in her books. This trip opened a whole new reason for travel.

Red Cloud is a very small, but interesting town.  I read at least five Cather novels before our visit, and it was like getting inside the author's mind to walk the streets she'd been on and sit in the train station from where she traveled to college, and back home from her work in New York.  Red Cloud became "Black Hawk" in My Antonia, and Jim Burton, the narrative voice of the book rode to that train station with Willa. We saw the attic bedroom where she lived as a teenager, the church where she was a member and donated stained glass in honor of her parents, the bank and opera house she knew and used in her writings.

I could not have completed my Impact piece without the background readings, and tour of Red Cloud.  My collage portrait places Willa in front of the Miner's house, next door to where she once lived, and part of the Willa Cather Foundation's tour in Red Cloud. The Miner family was her inspiration for the Harlings of My Antonia.  This is where Antonia lived, and worked as a hired girl. Note that in my painting the shadows of siding on the house are actually collaged text from the book describing the Harling house. I was surprised to realize Cather provided no physical references to the house...only descriptions of the family. My portrait is referenced from a 1912 photo by Aime Dupont Studio in New York, in which the author wore a large cameo brooch.  In this painting, I turned the cameo 45 degrees and changed the cameo image to the plow silhouetted in the setting sun as Cather describes in her book.  This description is included in the shadows to the left of the image of Cather.

I highly recommend a visit to Red Cloud!