Community: Cooking and Cleaning in the Shadows 

ReHappening 2022
Black Mountain College Museum and Art Center 
Collaborative Installation by Anna Helgeson and Lori Horvitz

Despite countless exhibitions, journal articles, and documentaries made about Black Mountain College, one person has been consistently overlooked; cook Cornelia Williams. In 1947, Williams, an African-American woman, was hired to join her husband George to cook for the college. They lived on campus and were encouraged to take classes.

In an unpublished poem, Charles Olson quoted Williams’ comment, “From many there are one.” Did Olson understand what she meant? Could she have meant that from many artists at the time, there is only one—the white male as a stand-in for the universal artist? 

Might she have been the creative force behind some of the work produced at BMC at this time? William Triechler, a former BMC student, remembers George Williams’ meat pies and casseroles. He writes, “George experimented with food coloring to serve brighter entrees,” and asks, “What’s wrong with culinary food studies?” Yet can we be sure that Cornelia wasn’t the mastermind behind these and other more artistic curiosities?

As a way to honor the creative labor done by all women working in the shadows of men, behind the (metaphorical) kitchen door we will speculate/recreate Cornelia’s kitchen, a vibrant and inspiring place where creativity thrived not in spite of, but because of its darkness.

Visitors will also be encouraged to look through her recipe box, where she stored the ingredients, not just for meatloaf and chess pie, but also her experimental poetry, irreverent observations of students and faculty and suggestions for improvements to Bucky’s dome.