Exhibit shows perspective of White River
NEWPORT — Traveling the 722-mile White River in a hand-built canoe led to an exhibit, White River Memoirs, which is on display at the Jacksonport State Park courthouse through Nov. 12.
Chris Engholm of Southern California explained his venture of bearing gale-force winds on the river, barely escaping a tornado’s hit and sleeping on sand bars during low stage as he paddled in 100-mile increments with his river-rat friend in tow.
Engholm explained his mission: “When I first laid eyes on the White River almost five years ago, I knew that it was the river I had been looking for … and about which I would attempt a biography,” he said.
“During trips to the High Sierra as a student, I became keen to write the story of a great river. … While paddling through Augusta, I stopped to find the ‘ lost archive’ of the Hugo and Gayne Preller photographs. Working with the Prellers’ granddaughter Gayne Preller Schmidt, I launched the House of Light exhibit of vintage Delta photographs and artwork in 2014,” Engholm said of his introduction into exhibits in Arkansas. The exhibit was named the No. 1 attraction
in Arkansas for 2015 by a local lifestyle magazine in January. “It has toured the state and opens in Little Rock at the HAM in April 2016.” (See facebook.com/HugoArthurPreller.)
The White River Memoirs exhibit includes the history, culture and ecology of the entire White River watershed, which encompasses 234 communities in 60 counties, he said.
“It turns out that this watershed is the most ecologically intact watershed in the continental U.S.,” Engholm said.
“I am a writer and historian by trade and sensibility. I see reality in terms of story and potential audience. … However, since the sixth grade, I have pursued photography as well, often professionally,” Engholm said.
“When I came to art-crazy Bentonville in 2011, I began to pursue exhibit making, which is essentially the art of turning a written narrative into a visual experience.
“White River Memoirs is a multimedia show with video, photographs, artwork, historic reproductions and, now, three-dimensional objects. The Preller show applied the same approach. It opened in Bates ville at the Old Independence Regional Museum and then traveled to Jacksonport, Des Arc and Helena[-West Helena].”
Some of Engholm’s noted collections in the White River Memoirs exhibit include a photo-canvas of the Upper White River from Inspiration Point by Eureka Springs photographer Edward Robison; a series of original black-and-white prints from Turner Browne’s book The
Last River, an inspiration for the movie Mud; photographs by J.P. Bell of the White River Limited Excursion train; and a photograph of the White River monster named “Whitey” from archives at the Jacksonport State Park Museum.”
Engholm said 20 artists are represented in the exhibit. “The subject is really too big for a single author,” he said.
Why the White River? What is the draw?
“For me, the White River is extraordinary for a host of reasons,” Engholm said. “First, it courses through two distinct ecological worlds, the Ozarks and the Delta, with their unique histories and cultural legacies. …
“And what we do to the river upstream affects the river and its inhabitants downstream. I like to say that the river connects and reflects us. It is a sort of mirror that tells us about our values and priorities. And our collective memory of what the river was like in earlier days can inform our conversation about how to manage the watershed today. I gathered more wisdom from the folks over 70 living along the White River than I did reading all the textbooks about limnology and hydrology.
“A voyage on the White River is like a novel; there are great moments of inspiration and exhilaration, followed by withering anguish over our past mistakes. It is green and pristine for a stretch with water as clear as Schoolcraft reported it, and then it’s turbid and tainted with effluent the next day. It’s a story teller; that is for sure.”
For his exhibit, Engholm talked with commercial fishers, museum directors, ferry operators, conservationists, mussel shellers and artists, in interviews he calls “fascinating,” he said.
“I realized quickly that there was a greater message to be delivered collectively than individually by myself,” Engholm said.
“I began to collect and reproduce images and objects related to the history of the White River as I paddled its length in a handbuilt cedar canoe,” he said. “This trip has been done in 100-mile increments, and I still have 100 miles to go (of the 722-mile river) before arriving at the mouth. …
“The canoe I built for the journey needed to be stable and hold a lot of gear. It’s a Ted Moore design called ‘The Prospector’ and took two months to construct. … Early in the journey, I met senior river rat Jim Fortune of Searcy, who has been running the river and its oxbows since there was dirt. … No, since the 1950s when the Big Woods still stood in the Delta. He’s a gifted storyteller and followed me down 400 miles of the river in his bass boat called The Silver Bullet, which he accurately calls ‘ the commissary boat.’”
As for the physical impacts of such a journey, “the hardship was real when we reached the Delta due to its absence of bluffs that block gale-force afternoon wind on the river that repeatedly forced me out of the canoe to pull it downriver with a tow line over my back. However, Jim always had a three-course meal prepared by sunset, so I can’t claim any serious injury beyond windburn and chapped lips,” Engholm said.
“I should mention that we missed being hit by a tornado by 30 miles while camping on a sandbar near Des Arc. The storm hit suddenly just as we sat down to dinner. It scattered our gear and lifted my tent, with me in it, and literally rolled it down the sandbar,” he said. “With strobe lightning striking too close for comfort, I spent the night shivering under my wood canoe. Jim’s tent stayed put because he buried his tent stakes (smart critter, he is), though he got soaked, too, and didn’t sleep a wink.”
Engholm also talked about some of his more recent endeavors.
“Recently, I teamed up with the Winslow Museum to create the largest record of vernacular structures still standing in the Arkansas Ozarks,” he said. “It is called Still Standing: Vernacular Structures of the Arkansas Ozarks and opens at the Neil Compton Gallery in spring 2016. It’s a boxed folio of black-and-white prints shot on film with a Hasselbled camera, accompanied by stories about each structure, some of which are really poignant.”(See facebook. ozarks.)
Engholm’s books include an oral book, White River Memories: The Spoken History of Liquid Legend, and a photography book based on the Still Standing exhibit, and a guide that will appear in March.
Engholm said that for some people, pursuing projects of personal expression is the only road to follow.
“You know who you are,” he said. “If you decide on this course, beat a path to the best mentors and advisers you can find, not to include family members, spouses, lovers or close friends. You must always walk a delicate line between personal vision and the appetite of your audience, and to succeed, you must satisfy the needs and wants of both.
“Seek criticism rather than adulation, and never stop revising.”