The Occult Harry Smith and the Women in His Early World

The Occult Harry Smith: The Magical and Alchemical Work of an Artist of the Extremes, a new anthology edited by Peter Valente, is about to enter the world of books. The Women in Harry Smith’s Early World is an essay I contributed. It features some of the influencers who surrounded Harry on Fidalgo Island: Mary Louise Smith, Henrietta Blaisdell, Luella Hurd Howard and Louise Williams.

Often portrayed as a lonely, misunderstood outsider, the historical record shows that creative communities enveloped Harry Everett Smith’s early years. He was nurtured by feminists—in deed, if not declaration—encouraged artistically and supported intellectually in the realms of culture overseen by members of the Anacortes Woman’s Club and other organizations. What began in his mother’s lap, continued through primary education by “refined revolutionaries” at Bellingham Normal’s progressive campus school. At age nine, Harry’s work was transplanted, beginning ten years of art classes in the Anacortes Hotel. Under his godmother’s wing at the Anacortes Public Library, he was lent books that opened portals into art, music, anthropology and psychology. He was free to follow his muse, creating his own museum from nature studies and artifacts found along Salish Sea shores. In this way Harry developed a lifelong passion for reversing cultural erasure. Yet the people who raised him have been largely erased from the stories we like to tell of an alienated artistic genius.

The Women in Harry Smith’s Early World combines excerpts from Sounding for Harry Smith and my substack archive: Resounding – Harry Smith in NW Washington.