// ossabaw island //
CREATIVE AIR
What the Island Did to the Work
Aaron Copland worked here. Samuel Barber. Ralph Ellison, who spent years on the island while writing and revising. Annie Dillard. Olive Ann Burns, who wrote Cold Sassy Tree in part through her residency. Margaret Atwood. Harry Bertoia, who made sound sculptures from wire and metal. Eugene Odum, who invented ecosystem ecology.
The Ossabaw Island Project, founded in 1961 by Eleanor Torrey West, operated on a specific theory: that proximity to an undisturbed ecosystem, isolation from institutional life, and contact with artists working in other disciplines would produce creative breakthroughs that were otherwise unavailable.
The island sits twenty miles by water from Savannah. Far enough. The forest absorbs sound. The marsh absorbs light differently from how any gallery or concert hall does. The fire at night is the only light.
The evidence suggests the theory was correct. The island is the proof.