Do not be alarmed! I am not suffering duel personalities, not even close. But there is someone in my head - pushing me to tell her story. She’s been here a long time, and just when I think I can kick back and relax she shakes me into a creative frenzy. That my friends, is a muse. That’s why I am writing at this very moment, she wants me to take action, or maybe I’m procrastinating to avoid finishing my taxes. Probably a little of both, but she’s here with me now, as I type. She always makes sure I get her story right. We were together this past week a lot - her work was up for auction and I, with pleasure, had to spread the word to her followers and collectors.
Needless to say, she died over 50 years ago. She’s not a ghost, but she’s always around and has been since I first met her when I started dating my husband in 2008. He took me to his home, probably with an intention to score but instead, I was struck by the arrow of a muse. KABLAM right to the heart! Around his home was a great deal of beautiful sculpture. I was an art aficionado and collected art for many years but who sculpted this incredible work? When he told me her epic story, I was furious I had never heard of the artist. That began a dual love affair with Malvina and her great nephew. She filled me with a need to learn more and took me down a rabbit hole which I remain deeply burrowed in, even today. Harry Nilsson said it best, this is a muse - at least to me.
After my muse and I began hanging out together, I came to the conclusion she probably was around many years prior to that first meeting at my husband’s home. The following are a snippet of the synchronicities with my muse, sculptor Malvina Hoffmann (1885-1966).
So friends, buckle your seatbelts, here are a few more crazy Malvina coincidences!
In the mid 1980’s, for several years I was a choral singer with the Annapolis Chorale (Maryland). At Christmas Vespers we sang the beautiful hymn, In the Bleak Midwinter. Without explanation, every time I sang the last verse, whether it was in rehearsals or performance, I would gently weep. Imagine my shock, when I read in Malvina Hoffman’s papers at the Getty Research Institute, that this same verse from In the Bleak Midwinter filtered through her thoughts as she worked on Pavlova’s Bacchanale. Malvina wrote,
“L’eternel idol, a group by Rodin repeats itself :
If I were a shepherd
I would give a lamb
If I were a wise man
I would do my part
But what I can I give her (Pavlova)
Give my heart” **In addition, the first performance I sang as a new member of the Annapolis Chorale was Faure’s Requiem. It was the most difficult piece of music I had ever learned at that point, and is still embedded in my memory. I have performed several other Requiems but this was my first, and it is the one Malvina Hoffman selected for her funeral.
Around 2006, I was at a trade show in Savannah, Georgia for the contract furniture industry. I met an architect who saw I was from Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. He told me his parents bought a house there on the ocean, his parents had recently died and now he and his brother’s owned the home. He gave me the address (he lived in Tennessee) and told me the family would never tear it down. I drove by the house almost everyday because it was on my way from here to there. This house it turned out, was the childhood home of my husband, whom I met in 2008.
When we married, we moved to Thomasville, Georgia, an outlier for me, not near a beach. This is where I began to research and write Malvina’s story in earnest. I kept her bronze portrait next to me as I wrote, and she watched me with impatience. I was going through cancer treatment for over a year and she pushed me to go on, for she had suffered struggles in her journey and my treatment was certainly no reason to slow down. (As I was treated for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, I learned her dear sister died of the same malady). While in the middle of treatment, I traveled to the Getty Research Institute in LA and the Field Museum in Chicago to dig into her papers. I wrote everyday on my good days, no less than 1000 words. I woke up in the middle of the night and spent hours browsing the web for answers to my Malvina questions. The answers always came to me
We lived at Pebble Hill Plantation (PHP), a temporary move because we needed more room for my daughter to help me during my treatment. My research and writing were intense during this time, Malvina sat next to my monitor, ever watching me work. When I finished my first draft, one of my readers told me that the architect for PHP, where I lived, was none other than the architect who commissioned Malvina to create Russian Bacchanale, the first bronze by a woman ever installed in the Paris Luxembourg Gardens, 1919. (Stolen by Nazis in WW2, erasing Malvina’s legacy). They were childhood friends and neighbors at their summer homes in Little Boar’s Head, New Hampshire. Architect Abram Garfield and Malvina Hoffman knew each other well. He was working on the PHP project when he commissioned Russian Bacchanale.
A couple I am acquainted with lives in Thomasville, Georgia and they live in a home designed by the famed architect William Delano. On occasion, I visited their home. Delano rarely worked in the south, it’s unusual to see his work so far from the northeast. While studying Malvina’s papers I learned she was in a relationship with Delano for many years, including when this home was designed.
Only after my book was published, I learned that my husband’s family owned a shooting plantation in Tallahassee, Florida called Waverly Plantation, about 20 miles from PHP. He never mentioned it before, although we drove by the now-a-housing-development many times. It belonged to his grandmother. Malvina’s sister-in-law was married to Charles Hoffman, and the women were close. I went back through Malvina’s memoirs and sure enough, she writes about the live oaks, canopy trees and the area. I can only surmise, the sculptor, my muse, traveled to PHP and also visited the home Delano designed, just down the road. In newspaper articles, her sister-in-law is on committees with the owners of PHP. I know darned well Malvina traveled the singular road between Waverly, PHP and Delano’s work. Me, living and writing my book on that property was more than a coincidence.
My daughter wanted a fairy tale wedding at OHEKA Castle in Huntington, New York. I never heard of it and looked it up - what a strange name. OHEKA. She didn’t know why it was called OHEKA either. She certainly had no idea of what I am about to tell you. When I learned it belonged to Otto Hermann Kahn, I almost fell over. Kahn was not only a great friend of the Hoffman family and Malvina Hoffman, but he was also the financier of ballerina Anna Pavlova’s Dance Company. It was his wife Adelaide who introduced the sculptor to the ballerina. They met at the Kahn home for tea with the Adelaide intent on the women meeting. From then on Malvina and Pavlova’s history was written. Two single, Victorian-born women became the closest of friends and collaborated in the all-male global business of art and dance. Working together, they achieved international fame and fortune. OBTW - William Delano was the architect of OHEKA Castle. The wedding was perfection and I feel confident that my muse and I both enjoyed visiting the Kahn’s country home.
I could go on. I have barely scratched the surface of the many lifetime coincidences where my muse and I have intersected. She picked me for some reason to tell her story, and I know we aren’t finished, there’s a lot more work to do. In the middle of writing, Malvina disappeared on me once, vanished. I was so frantic I visited a medium who didn’t know if my muse was a man or woman, and didn’t know I was writing a book. She told me my muse was angry, I was getting too personal in the book. She said it would hurt family members still alive, so I promised I wouldn’t share secrets. Malvina came back to me, and the research and writing moved forward in the direction she pointed me - like the arrow in the Nilsson song. I often hope I am worthy to finish the work she has tasked me to do. Like Malvina - I will never give up.
This muse thing is pretty wonderful. I’ve met biographers and other writers who’ve enjoyed the same experience. We all know that visual artists do their best work with a muse. I’m sure many of my friends never want to hear the name of my muse again but truthfully, after all these years, I feel that I can say with confidence, life with a muse is a gift. Although demanding, to know a muse makes for an amazing journey.
**Beautiful Bodies - The Adventures of Malvina Hoffman, 2018, New York, page 96