A Tale of Two Chapels

On our recent road trip to visit my great-aunt and see a Frank Lloyd Wright tower, Frink and I also toured two spectacular chapels designed by architect E. Fay Jones. Jones was an apprentice of Wright's who worked primarily in the Ozarks. I wasn't surprised to learn that when he was a high school student, Jones designed tree houses. Tall and narrow, his chapels soar among the trees, bringing the forest inside through walls of windows. With their dramatic, exposed trusses crisscrossing across their ceilings, these light and airy chapels look like they were designed by wood elves. At any moment I expected Galadriel or Legolas to come gliding in.

The more famous of the two is Thorncrown Chapel, near Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The members of the American Institute of Architects voted it their 4th favorite building in America. From a structural standpoint, Thorncrown is probably the more spectacular of the two chapels. And yet, we enjoyed our visit to The Mildred B. Memorial Cooper Chapel in Bella Vista, Arkansas more.

Even though the chapel is a mere quarter of a mile from a shopping center, the town feels far away. We parked in the little lot in the woods and walked down a tree-lined path to the chapel. We were the only people there, and it was utterly quiet. When we opened the heavy door and entered, we were enveloped by the serenity and simple beauty of the chapel, a gothic cathedral with all its walls replaced by glass. We sat in the pews and admired the soaring arches and the light flowing through the windows (although it was a cloudy, winter day). Even though we were there to admire the architecture, it was an extremely spiritual experience. The architecture itself inspired awe and quiet contemplation.





























Our subjective experience of Thorncrown was different, and I've spent a lot of time trying to pinpoint exactly why. The building itself is stunning. And yet, from the moment we approached the chapel, the experience felt less satisfying. First, there was the tall blue sign right near the door telling us to be seated in the chapel. It felt more like an order than an invitation. What's more, the sign stuck out jarringly in our pictures of the building. (We turned it sideways so we snap a couple of sign-free photos.)

When we entered, there was a staff member sitting near the door in a folding chair. Although she was friendly and welcoming, the mere presence of a monitor felt a little oppressive. I completely understand the desire to protect this architectural masterpiece, and to encourage respect for a place of worship. As someone who loves to visit cathedrals, I am often appalled at how rude and disrepectful other tourists can be, taking photos when explicitly told not to, imposing on people's prayers and contemplation by talking loudly, and wearing inappropriate clothing.

But the fact is, the entire time we were in the Cooper chapel, we whispered and were respectful, even though we were entirely alone, and even though there are no regular religious services conducted there to our knowledge. The building itself inspired our awe and respect. At Thorncrown, it was as if our "best behavoir" was not demanded by the spirituality of the space itself, but by the presence of the hostess, who seemed not so much guarding the chapel or welcoming guests, but maintaining a certain sanctity. It didn't help that she was one of those ostentatiously serene people who make you wonder exactly where the line is between sanctity and sanctimonius. She stressed that the chapel was an active place of worship and that "we don't want to be known as a wedding chapel" (a statement belied by their website, which prominently promotes Thorncrown as a wedding chapel.) The didactic impression was reinforced by the chapel's brochure. I didn't save it, but as I recall it was a bit insistent in its Christianity and its stressing of how spiritual the chapel is. It was ironic: When we were left alone to experience the chapel on our own terms, the feeling was one of incredbile spirituality. When we were told how spiritual the place was, the experience was precisely the opposite.

No doubt, devout Christians would probably have a different perspective on this. But for us, appreciation of a beautiful building is itself a kind of sanctity. Jones certainly knew this. Writing about Thorncrown, he wrote that “I saw opportunity here to create architecture. The distinction I am making is that all building isn’t architecture, just as all writing isn’t literature or poetry, even though the spelling, grammar, and syntax might be correct. There is something in architecture that touches people in a special way, and I hoped to do that with this chapel.”

Cooper acknowledges the "special way" the architect and his building touch you by inviting you to visit it as a structure. There is a path the winds through the forest so you can admire the chapel from every angle. Cooper seems to be saying, "I don't care what brought you here. Enjoy it." Thorncrown seemed to say, "I'm glad you're here. Now be spiritual." Even though Thorncrown's website touts the awards and accolades the building has earned, we felt a little guilty being there for the architecture, almost like our mere presence defiled the place.

Perhaps if we hadn't just visited Cooper a few hours before, we wouldn't have noticed a thing uninviting about Thorncrown. And in seeking to explore and explain the source of our different feelings in visiting these two chapels, I have probably exaggerated and overstated the case a bit. Thorncrown Chapel is an astonishingly lovely place, and we plan to return often to experience it in different seasons. If you're ever in Arkansas, I hope you'll get the chance to visit both of these amazing works of art.

Here's a Wikipedia Commons photo of Thorncrown in the flush green of summer (and without the attendant sitting in the entryway).

Links:
Mildred B. Coooper Memorial Chapel
Thorncrown Chapel
E. Fay Jones on Wikipedia Read more!

Willa Cather and My Grandfather's Peace Pipe

Willa Cather, knew all about the power of material things, as this description from Lucy Gayheart shows: "Lucy stuck the telegram in her mirror and hurriedly began to dress. She was thinking that years from now, when she would probably be teaching piano to the neighbours' children in Haverford, nothing would recall this part of her life more vividly, or make it seem so real, as that slip of paper."

I have most of Cather's books, two copies of some of my favorites. I prefer the buff-colored Vintage Classic editions. Unlike most paperbacks, whose covers and spines bend and crack, these are supple and flexible, with a clothlike feel that makes them comfortable to hold even with one hand. I got my Vintage Classic edition of Lucy Gayheart, along with several other books, in Red Cloud, Nebraska, at the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial. They cost more than they would have if I bought them used or on Amazon, but I enjoy knowing that they come from the very town where she spent most of her childhood.

There is much of Cather's own material culture in Red Cloud, but the object I remember most didn't belong to her at all, but to Annie Sadilek, the real woman on whom My Antonia is based. I will never forget standing in a frame house, in the tiny bedroom where she slept. Seeing her modest iron bed and faded quilt was incredibly moving. I love My Antonia. It pulses with life, not only Antonia's, but the life of the prairie, where there is "motion in the landscape; in the fresh, easy-blowing morning wind, and in the earth itself, as if the shaggy grass were a sort of loose hide, and underneath it herds of wild buffalo were galloping, galloping."

Cather's descriptions -- of the wolves chasing the bridal party's sleigh through the snowy forest or of Mr. Shimerda frozen in a pool of his own blood on the barn floor -- form part of my mind's architecture. And I will never forgive Jim for his inability to respond to Antonia, for his need always to see her as a mythologized set piece in his imagined Arcadia.

I'm not sure I understand my fascination with things touched by those I admire, the pull that draws me to visit places like Red Cloud so I can stand where Cather stood, see the very Bible in which she changed the date of her birth (making herself three years younger), touch the white picket fence surrounding her home. But in addition to the books, several objects in my own home intersect with the same cross-country trip that took us to Red Cloud and other places where imagined and real lives blend together.

After we left Nebraska, we headed north, taking in the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Wall Drugstore, the Corn Palace. My partner (who prefers to be known in these pages as "Frink") will never let me forget that we drove a hundred miles out of the way and paid a farmer $3.00 to see what Frink calls "The Hole in the Ground." But this wasn't any hole in the ground; it was the actual place where Pa built the dugout described in The Little House on Plum Creek. I snipped a few stalks of grass from the field bordering the creek, which I keep in a vase of dried flowers. Seeing them makes me feel a tangible connection to Laura, who lives in my mind as surely as the grass grows next to the hole in the ground on the banks of that creek. (Truth be told, this was the second hole in the ground we visited on this road trip; we also saw the wagon ruts from the Oregon Trail, which sent shivers up my spine but left Frink cold.)

We also went to Pipestone National Monument, on the South Dakota/Minnesota border. I didn't even know that the monument existed, but as soon as I saw it on the map, I wanted to go there to trace the history of one of the few things I own that once belonged to my grandfather.

My grandfather was the black sheep of his family, a heroin addict and drunk who abandoned his family in the 1930s when my father was six. My father never spoke of him and even changed his own first name to distance himself from a man he seemed to resent bitterly until the end of his life. (Of course, the fact that his first name was Wirt might have had something to do with the name change.) I know little about my grandfather, but I do have a few photographs of him. In one, he is about 13 years old. He stands, looking out with a more imperious version of my father's face, his hands resting on a beautiful, long-legged white dog. This formal drawing-room photograph does not at all jibe with the whispers I have heard about my grandfather, or with another of his things that has been passed down to me: a brick-red stone peace pipe, which I've been told he purchased in 1905 on a trip to Yellowstone. So, when I saw how close we were to the pipestone quarry, we veered again to visit yet another hole in the ground. Frink liked this one far better than the first two.

Pipestone National Monument is small and lovely, with a bubbling creek, a pretty waterfall, and the thin seams of pipestone from which Native Americans still quarry their sacred pipestone. The artist George Catlin, who collected Native American pipes (especially the pornographic effigy models), recorded the origin of the pipestone:

At an ancient time, the Great Spirit, in the form of a large bird, stood upon the wall of rock and called all the tribes around him, and breaking out a piece of the red stone formed it into a pipe and smoked it, the smoke rolling over the whole multitude. He then told his red children that this red stone was their flesh, that they were made from it, that they must all smoke to him through it, that they must use it for nothing but pipes: and as it belonged alike to all tribes, the ground was sacred, and no weapons must be used or brought upon it. (Sioux account of the origin of the pipestone, as told to George Catlin, 1836, from park website.)

By the time Catlin was collecting and drawing such pipes, they were being produced for the tourist trade, and I'm sure my grandfather's pipe was never used in a sacred ceremony. But it is weighty and beautiful in its simple elegance, decorated only with rows of concentric circles carved on the bowl and stem ends. I keep it on a bookshelf in the living room, nowhere near the Cather books, which are upstairs in my office, or the prairie grass, which is in a green vase on the dining room buffet.

Still, these things are all connected in my mind -- Willa Cather's novels, a prairie landscape which for most of my life I knew only from books, a pipe held by a grandfather I will never know at all. The thing that unites them might be simply the roadtrip through the prairies, but it feels deeper than that, like the prairie itself. I remember hearing somewhere that for every six feet of grass growing on a prairie, there are 18 feet of roots growing beneath the ground. That's how these objects feel to me. Somewhere under the surface they are all tangled together, woven by memory and imagination and by a longing for something that remains elusive and mute. It can only be felt, like the heft of a cool stone pipe in my hands.

Click here Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial website. (If you're a photographer, you may be interested in their current photography contest.)

Click here to visit Pipestone National Monument.

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