vividreports: The world of "Christina's World"

We went to Maine the third weekend in September, to go to the Common Ground Fair, which is an annual pilgrimage for Ellen, and often for me as well. The fair is sponsored by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, and it is a wonderful fair with hundreds of exhibits, workshops, food booths, musical events, etc. I learned how to make date bars on a campfire (and we got to sample them), a technique new to me for bringing down a tree with a chain saw (which requires a bit of practice), ten common mistakes woodlot owners make (I'm guilty of several), and other important information.

"Date bars baking by an open fire...."

Serving up those delicious date bars!

During that weekend we stayed with Jim and Mary Tolles in Hope, Maine, and also visited my old friends, Phil and Deborah McKean, who spend their summers in Cushing, ME (they now live the rest of the year at Pilgrim Place, a retirement community in Claremont, CA). That visit included a visit to the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, ME and that included a visit to the Olson House in Cushing, the location of Andrew Wyeth's painting, Christina's World.

Christina's World, by Andrew Wyeth

When you visit the Olson House, you learn a lot about the background of Christina's World. The young woman in the foreground is Christina Olson, who suffered from an undiagnosed muscular degenerative disease. She had a deep distrust of doctors and eschewed using a wheelchair or even crutches, and thus had very limited mobility and had to crawl around the house or when she (rarely) went outside. She lived with her bachelor brother, Alvero, in Cushing, ME, and Wyeth was introduced to them by his future wife, Betsey James, in 1939, and became a friend. He made this painting in 1948, just a couple of years after his father had been tragically killed when he was struck by a train. Christina Olson was then in her mid-50's. The figure of the woman in the painting is a composite of the head and torso of Wyeth's young wife, and wasted limbs and pink dress of the older Christina Olson.

The Olson House has been restored to an appearance very similar to that of the painting. The interior is mainly bare of furnishings, preserving the bleakness of the lives lived within it. It is impossible, however, the find the perspective on the house given in the painting, because in his composition of the painting, Wyeth altered the position of house and barn, as well as the lay of the land.

Olson House as it appears today

Kitchen in the Olson House, the only room with any furnishings

View from an upstairs window

While we were visiting houses, I wanted Ellen to see Phil McKean's old family summer cottage in Friendship, a place I have stayed in many times in earlier years, and which I consider a classic example of a Maine summer home, with old magazine pictures virtually covering the walls, old books and furniture, and mobiles composed of little hand-carved Friendship sloops, made by Phil's dad, Hugh McKean. The cottage goes back to the 19th century in Phil's family.

The McKean cottage in Friendship, Maine

Interior view of McKean cottage

Even the lavatory has magazine pictures

Surprised at a Maine camp site

The Farnsworth Museum is also a wonderful place to visit. The main exhibit was about Shaker life and design - a fascinating exhibit, but no photos allowed. However, they do allow photos of their permanent collection, and I got these three: a montage by Bernard Langlais, and landscapes by Neil Welliver and Rockwell Kent.