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Ars Voces: Wyatt Waters and The Great Out Here

I started painting when I was 2 years old; my kindergarten teacher taught me to read and to paint the story. She was really interested in art, and when I started school she gave me private lessons. She’s probably the reason I started painting.

My dad fought in WWII, so his values reflected that: had to work, had to study. I can’t do just a little bit of something; I have to do a lot of it. I can’t do it for an hour and a half a day. If I don’t have a good immersion in it, it just isn’t going to happen. I went to Mississippi College, and we didn’t have aesthetics, but we had a creative writing class. It was so fun to be in that class: theme variations, tension, restraint; the big things. That was really my only aesthetics class, that and going to the truck stop to drink coffee after we’d dropped our dates off. You had to get your dates in by 10 p.m. back then.

I’m a dinosaur; I paint outside. I usually start to paint things based on what I call The Great Out Here, the reflected and atmospheric lights that are in the world. The more I paint, the more I look at something, the more it gets on my retina and creates an after-image when I look away from it. You know how a flash bulb goes off and you can still “see” this thing floating in your vision? Well, it’s that sort of thing. It’s why I work on location, because it happens when I’m working on location, and it doesn’t happen for me in the studio, at least not in the same way.

I carry a mirror with me. When I don’t know what to do, I look in the mirror, and the mirror tells me what it looks like to other people. It gives me some objectivity on what I’m seeing. And that probably is the trickiest thing that I use. Painting is considered kind of trick, you know, techniques and all that. I used to be pretty technique-y, but that takes the left-hand side of the brain and puts it on the right-hand side. When you’re writing something, and you come back to it the next day, it’s the same effect; you see how other people see it. When you’re close to it, you can’t tell what to do, so I use a mirror progressively as the painting develops. Like penicillin, I use it when I need it.

It’s also tied in to the idea that the real experience is a lost thing. We’re almost a virtual society now, and in a virtual kind of world, it becomes important for me to make a case for the real experience, or at least to be out there saying that here it is. So that’s what I do, paint on location, and let the real experience of being in front of something affect me, to let that to be my influence.

Invariably, though, when you’re working outside, all sorts of things are going to happen and you’re going to get into the zone, that hypnotic place, and you begin painting expressively. I try to let that happen; I don’t know how to make it happen, but when I paint, it seems to happen on its own. I’ve always loved how watercolor doesn’t do what you want it to do. It’s the only medium I can think of that moves while you’re painting; it drips and runs. It’s like dancing; It isn’t what you make it do, it’s taking advantage of what it’s doing in the first place. It’s like riding a horse. The horse knows something about the field; you don’t drive a horse, you listen to the horse.

I went to Paris, and here I was in one of the great centers of the art world, and I got really homesick. I figured out that the things I want to paint are all here. I didn’t think it would be that way, but all the things I want to do are here.

Anthony Difatta
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Peanut Hummus

Billy Dale was holding court.

“Yancy, this is very simple. If you grind dry roasted peanuts with grease and salt, you get peanut butter; if you puree boiled peanuts with oil, you get redneck hummus. Imagine me, a shit-kicker from Opelousas, having to teach Mississippi’s go-to bubba on white trash food the difference.”

“Billy Dale, I have never as long as I’ve drawn breath ever claimed to be an authority on anything, I’m just trying to find out as much as I can by cautious, polite, and respectful questioning.”

“You’re such a pompous asshole.” Dale said. “My wife told me you remind her of an alcoholic Sunday school teacher she had in Iuka. Used to make them draw pictures of him balancing a Bible on his head.”

“B.D., let me off the hook, okay?”

“Fine,” Dale said. “Go turn the chicken and get me another beer.”

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Potato Pea Salad

Quarter, parboil, and drain small red potatoes. Blanch fresh or frozen peas; you want them firm. Mix both with diced scallions and chopped parsley. Toss in a vinaigrette made with vegetable oil, white vinegar, and creole mustard seasoned with black pepper.. Chill thoroughly. Coat with a squeeze of lemon before serving.

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Little Bob

You asked me about the dog statue in the cemetery.

The statue is on the Guinn family plot. The Guinns are gone now, but they were well-known. Robert Guinn was an attorney who handled mostly small claims, but did well enough to own a house on President Street. He had a lovely wife, Rose, and a little girl, Doris.

All little girls should be pretty, but Doris wasn’t; her face fused improperly in the womb. There’s a name for the condition that I can’t remember, but it’s a cruel assessment of the divine to say that was God’s will, if you ask me. She was never photographed, but there was a portrait painted, and the artist aligned her features.

I saw it long ago; she had shining dark hair and a shy smile.

Doris in all other respects was a normal little girl; she had dolls and dresses and went to school with all the other little girls on the street. She also had a small dog, a spaniel of some kind that she adored. Her father had given her the puppy when she was five years old, so she named it after him. She called it Little Bob.

The dog would follow her to school, wait afternoons on the corner for her to come home, and was with her when she died at twelve. After that, Little Bob would go to the corner every afternoon and wait; at dark he’d go home until one day he couldn’t, and Bob Guinn went and got him, took him home.

Oh, there was a fuss about putting a memorial to a dog in the graveyard, much less his bones, but Robert Guinn took it to court and won, all said his finest hour before the bench.

So that’s Little Bob there with little Doris. He was a good dog.

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Hot Dip from Cafe Olé

Cafe Olé on University Avenue in Oxford was a popular eatery in the 1990s. I worked there briefly after I returned to Oxford after several years in Florida,

The dip, served as a complimentary side with a basket of warm tortilla chips, is typical of most good Mexican restaurants. We made gallons and gallons of it. Make a batch according to these directions and then modify as you see fit. I have scaled down the more distinctive ingredients (lime juice, vinegar, jalapeno “juice”, onion, garlic, and cilantro) in this version, because once these are added, you can’t very well remove them. If you want more, add later. The dip should be on the thin side, very sharp, redolent of garlic, cilantro, and lime.

1 12-oz. can tomato puree
1 cup water
1 12-oz. can whole tomatoes (with juice)
1/2 cup lime juice
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup canned jalapeno juice
1 cup jalapenos (half that if you’re using fresh)
1 large white onion, chopped
1/4 cup granulated garlic (I recommend dried/minced as a substitute)
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Process until smooth

Photo by Lester Ferrell
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Hoover Lee Sauce

Hoover Lee was a grocer in Louise, Mississippi who created a marinade to replicate Cantonese duck. His concoction has a heavy soy background accented with garlic and ginger. These chicken leg quarters were marinated overnight and roasted in a slow (250) oven for a ninety minutes. The skin was crisp and the flesh succulent, reminiscent of the character if not the flavor of roast duck.

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Cooking by Ear

Sooner or later you’re bound to hear someone say they can’t boil water or even worse (and this is the voice of experience speaking) hear it said about you.

Boiling water without a geyser was a mammoth leap for mankind, so much so that nowadays saying somebody can’t bring water to a boil casts a bad light not only on their cooking, but also on their other basic skills, not to mention their family. Even chemists should be able to boil water, and it should be made an exit requirement on the MCAT and LSAT as well. Not even clergy should be exempt, and if you can’t boil water, I don’t want you fiddling with my fuse box, either.

Shortly after we brought water to a boil on our own, we learned how to steam foods in sealed, slightly vented containers. Given that pottery was still in its infancy then, pressure cooking was probably a messy if not painful innovation; but steaming food was the Paleolithic equivalent of the microwave oven, a quick method for cooking dried grains and tough meats, the staffs of life before Stouffer’s. Starches and cheap cuts are not only inexpensive and nutritious but when properly prepared wonderful, anyone who takes an interest in cooking should learn how to use a pressure cooker.

This takes time. God knows I’ve burned everything except water at least twice, but when it comes to pressure cooking, I’m not taking all the blame. A pressure cooker can be as cantankerous as a maiden aunt and almost as noisy; the cooker’s regulator jiggles and bangs about before releasing a steady hiss that lets you know it’s at full steam. Unlike most other kitchen activities, cooking with pressure involves hearing more than seeing or smelling.

The first step is to get a cooker. I’m not prone to endorsements (meaning I don’t get paid for any), but Presto pretty much put the lid on canning kitchenware in North America, and after over a century their products are still an industry standard.

Buy a new 4-quart cooker, which will set you back about $30 retail. Once you tap into your inner earth mother and begin canning home-grown beets, you might buy a bigger, second-hand apparatus with dials and other gadgets, but until that happy occasion live with your new gallon of steam and get to know how it works.

I recommend practicing with cooking dried beans because they’re cheap and a quart of simply seasoned beans (especially the larger varieties such as kidneys, limas, and garbanzos) goes a long way in dozens and dozens of dishes all across the board. Kidneys are a fine example of this versatility; these big red beans stand out in soups and salads as well as sides.

Before cooking beans of any kind, scatter them on a flat surface and remove any rocks or clumps of earth you’re likely to find, as you’re likely to find a few. Pressure-cooked beans need two cups water to one cup beans. Beans need a bit of oil prevent frothing, which could clog up the cooker’s vent and put a serious hitch in your get-along. The chemical processes that make dried beans and grains froth under pressure elude me, but I suspect this preventative measure is the culinary equivalent of an oil slick.

What you do with your cooked beans is up to you. Be happy.

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Curried Hummus

Mix a garlic-y hummus with chopped spinach, feta, and red curry paste. Spread in a well-oiled oven-proof dish, top with more feta and bake in a moderate oven until lightly crusted. Serve with flat bread and a cucumber/tomato/onion vinaigrette.

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Cheesecake at the Hoka

Ron Shapiro opened the Hoka in 1974. He showed much of what passed as “art cinema”, but included an eclectic blend of old “B” movies, and selections from cutting edge favorites such as Russ Meyers and John Waters.

Sometime around 1978, Ron went into partnership with Betty Blair, a beautiful lady from the Delta, and together they opened up the Moonlight Café in the theater. A dining area was constructed, the plumbing was re-done, kitchen equipment and a storage room were installed. The Moonlight served sandwiches, salads and desserts, and in a short time the Hoka became a popular nightspot in Oxford, a place to see and be seen.

One of the signature desserts was a New York-style cheesecake that came to the Moonlight via two sisters, Marla and Lee Ann Frear, who hailed from Delaware. Both Marla and Lee Ann were big, buxom blondes. I vividly remember them at a Halloween party as Siamese twins, resembling a battleship in full steam as their huge boobs plowed a wake through the crowd.

They got the recipe from their mother, who was a caterer in Dover, and sold the cakes to the Moonlight to abet their college allowances. After they graduated, they gave the recipe to Gene Duncan, who gave it to me some forty years ago. It’s a simple concoction, but you must take care to pack the crust evenly or it will singe on the outside and be soggy in the middle

Hoka Cheesecake

Filling: ¾ cup sugar, 3 large eggs, 2 teaspoons vanilla, 24 oz. cream cheese, room temperature, 1 stick melted butter. Beat eggs, add sugar and mix well at medium speed, then add cream cheese and melted butter.
Crust: 1 box Nabisco graham cracker crumbs, 1 ½ cup sugar, 1 ½ stick melted butter.
Topping: 1 pint sour cream, room temperature, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 4 tablespoons sugar.

Mix crust ingredients, pack in lightly oiled 9”x3” spring form pan. Mix filling ingredients well at medium speed for three minutes. Pour over crust, spread evenly and bake at 375 for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, spoon on topping, return to oven at 475 for 5 min. Chill before slicing and serving.

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Old Rain

Every childhood has a Radley house, a Boo around the corner that opens our eyes to a world that doesn’t appear or work the way we thought it does or will.

Old Rain spooked my little world. Some said he was a freakish child abandoned by a troupe of carnies, others said he was a lost baby Bigfoot come south. When he wasn’t brooding in a boarded-up house in Pittsboro, he haunted the woods and hollows feeding the creeks and streams that make the Skuna River. I don’t know why we called him Old Rain, but what else is the Skuna–or any other river in Mississippi–save rain that’s found its way from the hills to the bottoms and over-wintered in owl-hooted sloughs, distilled and aged, steeped in the character of the land, an inspiration of earth itself?

We bury imaginary monsters under the baggage of adulthood, so I folded Old Rain away after finding far more frightening things than whisperings, thumps, and shifting shadows  on lonely pathways, but I’ve grown to believe he was a faunus of the little river bottoms and low wooded hills that my Choctaw ancestors knew and loved. They would call him a thrower,  a poboli of the hidden people of the woods; my Welsh ancestors would call him a woodwose, both beings living vestiges of the vital, spirit of the old forests which were themselves a manifestation of divinity on earth.

Old Rain is now–in mind and memory–a companion in those places I still cherish most: bright spring hills, close, dark summer woods, and open fields in the clear cold horns of winter.