Black Mountain College in western North Carolina was an experimental progressive school
which was founded in 1933 and closed in 1957. Though in existence for a short period of time, its influence on the arts, education,
and even popular culture reverberates to the present. A list of those who attended or taught at the college reads like a roll
call of the American avant garde including Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Josef and Anni Albers, Jacob
Lawrence, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Cy Twombly, Kenneth Noland, Franz Kline, Arthur Penn, Buckminster Fuller, M.C. Richards,
Charles Olson and Robert Creeley to name a few. Such notable events as John Cage’s first happening, Bucky Fuller’s
first dome, and the formation of Merce Cunningham’s dance company took place on its grounds which is now a summer camp
for children.
Before her passing in 2005, I had the privilege of visiting the old Black Mountain College site
with Gwendolyn Knight. She and her husband Jacob Lawrence, both great artists and central figures in the Harlem Renaissance,
had been at the college in its heyday.
To
hear David Schuster read his poem, please click on this player:
