It’s a long, long way to Mary-land. Especially when my route
requires a pit stop on the Oregon Coast first. It was summer, after all, and I
figured the beaches along the Pacific might outshine any in Minneapolis. Just a
hunch. Besides, going straight from Vancouver would have been too logical. This
journey was about following whims and whimsy.
Once I’d finished a seemingly obligatory cheese stop
and an exploration of the coastal scenery in Oregon, I headed for Minneapolis. Still,
Washington, Idaho, Montana and North Dakota stood between Mary Richards and me.
For the first day of the trek, I planned a road stop in the
middle of nowhere: Maryhill, Washington. How “nowhere” is Maryhill? As one
leaves the area, there is a sign indicating the next gas station is 82 miles
away. Not that one can fill up in Maryhill. It is barely a blip, described on
Wikipedia as a “census-designated place (CDP)”, population 98. (I think
someone’s counting sheep.)
My obsession with Mary did not lead me there. The name is a
mere coincidence. Maryhill is not the sort of place for a cosmopolitan Ms.
Richards.
So why Maryhill? Its existence can be attributed to two
sites: a winery and an art museum. (There’s also a Stonehenge replica, but it
fails to contribute to the population. It’s about dead people, a memorial for
World War I soldiers. Yes, folks, Stonehenge in Washington state. And, yes, I
stopped there too for practical reasons. It’s a lot closer than England.)
I passed on the wine as I am far from a connoisseur. (I
recall from another ‘70s show, “Laverne & Shirley” that one must “sip,
swirl, suck, swallow.” No thanks. I’ll stick with coffee, especially on a long
road trip.) Art was the main draw. Amidst desert heat and strong winds in this
barren land high above the Columbia River, a fellow by the name of Sam Hill
built what was to be his home. Presumably he named the area for his wife, Mary
Hill Hill—yes, her maiden name matched his. She had no interest in the far, far
out of the way mansion and chose to remain in—get ready for a Mary Richards
connection after all—Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Good on you, Mary Hill Hill!
I first learned of the Maryhill Museum of Art a couple of
years ago in Sunset magazine. This is
not your typical off the beaten path museum, filled with fishing rods of the
area’s founder and his son’s comic book collection. No, Sam Hill connected with
Loie Fuller who in turn connected with Auguste Rodin. Oui, that Rodin. A
collection of Rodin sculptures in remote Washington? I had to see it.
Normally, I’m not one-track minded when I go to an art
museum. But I’d driven an awfully long way to see Rodin sculptures and I wasn’t
having any of the ornate gold plates from Romania, the dolls dressed in early
twentieth century Parisian fashion or the wood-cut naturalist paintings on
exhibit. Might as well have been fishing poles. Show me Rodin!
Strangely, I found nary a sculpture on the first or second
floor. I questioned how well I’d read that one-column magazine article. Had it
been a touring exhibit? As I glimpsed a window showcasing some of the
collection not technically on display, I wondered if Rodin was on vacation—some
prominent exhibit in some place more logical…like
Marseilles or Lyon. I did not want to appear shallow as an art patron,
blatantly skipping over room after room, but I began to lose it as I viewed
impressively beaded moccasins in a display case in the museum’s basement. I’d
reached the end of the tour, covered the entire space.
But thankfully my sense of direction constantly fails me. I
thought I was headed back upstairs only to discover one more wing in the
basement. One large open room filled entirely with sculptures, sketches and
watercolors by Auguste Rodin!
I hadn’t realized that modern sculptors create molds and
often prepare plaster and bronze versions of any “one” piece. For instance, there
are twenty-eight bronze castings of Rodin’s “The Thinker”. The Maryhill has a
smaller plaster version of the iconic sculpture. It sits there just, you know,
thinking. I can almost read his mind: Out of all the museums in the
world, how did I end up here? It is a decent museum actually and I’m so
glad I popped in. Still, I’ll continue to scratch my head as to why its Thinker
and eighty-six other sculptures and sketches by Rodin got relegated to the back
room of the basement.
Mary’s hill made for a lovely side show. After a briefer pit
stop to take in the American Stonehenge, I continued on the meandering road,
still days away from Mary Richards and the sites of Minneapolis.
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