Cassilhaus is about art and artists. Even before we started the design process we knew we wanted a space for artists to come to live and create. We designed an artist studio pod with live/work space, sleeping loft, kitchen, and a full bath with an eye toward an artist-in-residence program.
Ellen and I were anxious to see how it would work. I did a bunch of reading about other artist retreats and residencies and put together a draft document about our own informal Cassilhaus visiting artist program as a way of collecting our thoughts. To kick things off we needed a professional artist who we knew well enough to ask to be our guinea pig and work through some of the inevitable kinks of the new house and the new idea but not someone so close that we would not get objective feedback.
Enter Walter Angehrn.
I met Walter in 1986 when I moved to Switzerland to be with my then girlfriend Susanna. Walter and Susanna were close friends who had gone to medical school together and were now in their residencies. We did a lot of hiking together and became fast friends. Here is Walter atop Niesen after our very long climb 23 years ago.
When my relationship broke up and I moved back to the US, Walter and I lost touch with each other. In 2007 Ellen and I planned a trip to Europe for me to meet her French relatives, and I decided I wanted to try and track down Walter. 20+ years seemed like 2 months and we clicked again instantly and had a marvelous reunion in St. Gallen where he lives. We traveled around Switzerland and Austria
and got caught up on each others lives. Walter had just made the monumental decision to leave medicine to pursue art full time. He had always been an artist but his schedule never allowed him to pursue it seriously. We told him about our house dreams and asked him if he would be our first artist-in-residence at Cassilhaus and to our delight he agreed.
Walter's work is abstract and for me, a lover of photography, it was a steep learning curve to try to understand his process and media and step outside my narrow figurative photo world. It was such a joy to have him here to share and explain his work. When he arrived Walter had just completed a very successful show of his new series which was a group of 28 dyptics (drawings and paintings) created in response to JS Bach's Cantanta #21. A bit exhausted from all the work and stress of a big opening, he said he just wanted to retreat and enjoy his first visit to NC with us rather then diving into a new project. We gladly obliged and showed him around the Triangle and even got him down to Ocracoke Island and Wrightsville Beach.
We also took him on an excursion to NYC. Ellen and I wanted to go to a contemporary furniture fair to scout furniture for the house and Walter suggested we go a day early and visit Dia Beacon and Storm King north of the city. It was definitely a full day but both were unbelievable. If you ever get the chance to go do not hesitate.
The Richard Serra pieces at Dia were overwhelmingly beautiful.
Walter, a devotee of artist Cy Twombly, went on an excursion of his own to Houston to see the Twombly Pavilion on the Menil Collection campus there. It was a true pilgramige for him and he was very moved by his visit.
It is clear that there will be no "typical" visit for an artist here but it was very useful to have this first experience. It was very odd for me to negotiate that line between my normal inclinations of a host with a visiting friend and the host of an artist that we wanted to give time and space and privacy to work. The first night with me eating alone on one side of the house and Walter eating alone on the other was a new experience for me! The only critical feedback we got from Walter was that the refrigerator was too loud and that the place was "too nice" for him to feel comfortable working in. We addressed the latter problem by putting heavy paper down on the entire floor so he could paint outside the lines.
He also asked me to remove some of the photographs on the wall in the studio to give him more of a blank sheet of paper in the space.
When I get anxious about whether we are doing things "right" or providing the right environment for creative work, I need to remind myself that there really is no right way and that the artists will tell us what they need. Our only expectation at the moment is that our visiting artists have a great experience with us and we achieved that with Walter.
His whole time here was magical. We shared many walks and meals and visits with good friends. The potential for richness in surrounding ourselves with artists sharing our home was apparent each day of Walters visit. Ellen joked as Walter left that we were going to abandon the idea of the artist residency program after Walter as it couldn't get any better.
As a parting gift Walter surprised us with a beautiful dyptic of the first piece in a new series, "responses," that germinated here at Cassilhaus. The series will pair abstract photographs with drawings/paintings that respond to or answer the photograph. I don't have it properly matted yet but here is a mockup.
Walter we will miss you! Thank you so much.
When I work, I work very fast, but preparing to work can take any length of time.
--Cy Twombly
