Elisabet & Albert
...cont'd from page 4
itself, but the sensitive artist who gave Huff's message new color. A mere two months after the mural appeared, there were already at least three versions of the reasons behind its homage to Huff. The dangers arising from the lack of a formal institution become clear here, as different, conflicting narratives proliferate quickly about even recent events having to do with Huff's memory.
Visitors to the Elizabet Ney Museum go there in order to indulge in the ritualistic experience of ruminating upon the importance of Elisabet Ney as a member of the Hyde Park community and as a passionate advocate for the arts in Texas, during a time when Austin was a small, rustic town. In more piecemeal fashion, a wide variety of organizations and individuals throughout Hyde Park create this "museum experience" without the benefit of an actual museum. On a daily basis, as people live and work in Hyde Park, myriad signals call their attention to the past existence and continuing importance of Albert Huffstickler, injecting the ritual of cultural memory directly into their everyday lives. Thus, the very informality of the remembrance of Huff renders this memorial more accessible and dynamic than any institution or organization could. On the other hand, the lack of a central institution to help control and direct the memory of Huff opens this memory to the distortion of events. Beyond this possibility of the creation of various irreconcilable stories about Huff and about his remembrance, there is also the very real danger of the dispersal of Huff's works themselves. For example, as Nancy Taylor Day told me, many of his works were taken after his death by his sister, Margaret Huffstickler. In fact, Margaret took ten boxes of his works that Day had been keeping after his death. Meanwhile, another friend of Huff's, Sylvia Manning of Seguin, may or may not still have some boxes of his works, and Day remembers seeing some notebooks of Huff's which contained his sketches but is "damned if [she] know[s] where they went". In fact, Day wishes, half-facetiously, that she had been a thief back then, so that his works would not now be as dispersed as they presently are. Thus, the dynamic character of Huff's memory has definite risks and costs attached, which must be countered.
What is to be done? The wealthy friends of Elizabet Ney ensured that the house Ney designed for herself would serve also to house her works and her memory. How can we do something similar for Hyde Park's poet laureate? The answer to this, of course, must come from Hyde Park as a community, but I hope to offer at least the beginnings of a solution. In the long run, perhaps a physical place can be secured as a repository for Huff's memory, in the same vein as, say, the O. Henry Museum in East Austin. However, technology offers an option for immediate action. The Internet can provide an inexpensive, virtual alternative to the traditional museum,
permitting people worldwide to experience Huff's vision and to share their experiences with the poet and the man. I hope that this series has shown the need for such a project and that it will help to focus our will to preserve Huff's memory, and I plan to begin work on an online archive and repository devoted to Albert Huffstickler later this year. The task will require that the Hyde Park neighborhood resolve to keep his memory alive. Therefore, I ask that anyone who has ideas or suggestions about the form the site should take and the means by which it might be maintained over time contact me via e-mail at huffproject@yahoo.com. As community, we can ensure that Huff's past has a future.
- Dennis Lensing
dlensing@mail.utexas.edu
dlensing@mail.utexas.edu
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Discovering you landloard's insurance doesn't cover your stuff.
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