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DODGE, From page 6
Freudian theory in a newspaper column, and she continued to seek love and romance, reportedly with women as well as men. Perhaps she was ahead of her time in this department, often referred to as the "New Woman" because of her free love philosophy.
One of her infatuations was a radical young reporter from Oregon, John Reed. He wrote for the cause of the working man, and in 1913 during the silk workers' strike in New Jersey, when Mabel wanted to dramatize their plight with a pageant in Madison Square Garden, John Reed volunteered to write the script. Mabel took it upon herself to be his inspiration. After the successful pageant Mabel and John sailed for Europe.
Mabel was totally obsessed with Reed, jealous even of the attention he might pay an objet d'art, and in turn tried to possess him totally-in order, of course, to mold his inchoate talents into greatness. Meanwhile, though captivated, he wasn't about to let his outside interests be captive to his passion for Mabel. After a few months' stay at Mabel's villa in Florence…, Reed moved into 23 Fifth Avenue, with Mabel complaining that she had to 'recapture' him every night only to lose him every morning to his patrols of the ghettos.
(from "A Charged Particle Among the Force Fields of Her Times")
Of course the affair, although it continued for another year, was sure to end, and in November 1913 Reed left. Mabel overdosed on veronal, but suffered no lasting effects from the drama.
Mabel turned back to art. It was not long before she met Maurice Sterne, a Russian-born painter. They were soon married and soon separated as Mabel sent him off the Southwest. Mabel remained in New York writing and seeing her psychoanalyst. A New York medium reported to Mabel that she saw her surrounded by" Indians." Then Mabel had a vision in which
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He believed that Native cultures were dying, but she persuaded him that all they needed were allies. Collier listened and observed eventually becoming Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Some of his work, particularly the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, is argued by some to be one reason Native People's cultures still exist.
By this time many women were part of New Mexico's burgeoning art colony. Among those who had left behind their cosmopolitan comforts were Dorothy Brett, Eleonora Kissel, Mabel Degen, Rebecca James, and Gisella Loeffler. More artists and writers continued to heed Mabel's personal urging to come and see that wonderful country including Mary Austin, Robinson Jeffers, Willa Cather, Thornton Wilder, Ansel Adams, Thomas Wolfe, and Georgia O'Keefe.
Of those Mabel convinced to come to New Mexico, perhaps one of the most famous was D.H. Lawrence. By all accounts, including his own, Lawrence initially found the land inspiring.
…We, bowling along in a rickshaw in Ceylon say to ourselves: 'It's very much what you'd expect: we really know it all. We are mistaken. The know-it-all state of mind is just the result of being outside the mucous-paper wrapping of civilization. Underneath is everything we don't know and are afraid of knowing. I realized this with shattering force when I went to New Mexico.
("New Mexico Where the Spirit Rules," p.12)
He arrived in 1922 with his wife Frieda. They stayed with Mabel and Tony in their home. Mabel was convinced that only Lawrence could write the definitive piece that would capture the essence of her new locale. She expected that he would use her experience and inspiration to write the great American novel.
See DODGE, page 10
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Maurice's face became that of an "Indian." Mabel was drifting, not sure what direction to travel when Maurice began writing to her from Taos. He wrote, "Do you want an object in life? Save the Indians, their art-culture-reveal it to the world!"(Movers and Shakers) Mabel was on her way to the third and perhaps most fulfilling, phase of her life.
Edna Fergusson wrote of the Southwest in 1940, " those who can stand it have had to learn that man does not modify this country; it transforms him, deeply…. It is magnificence forever rewarding to a man courageous enough to seek renewal of his soul."(from "A Charged Particle Among the Force Fields of Her Times") Mabel found what she had been searching for in New Mexico. She viewed the Taos Pueblo community as the embodiment of what America needed. It was stable and permanent; work and play were communal activities connected to the environment; life was a naturally integrated whole. In Pueblo life Mabel saw what she wanted for herself. It was not long before she and Maurice divorced. Mabel was in love with a Taos native, Tony Luhan. He became her fourth and final husband.
Mabel took a leading role as patroness of the arts of Taos and staunch supporter of Native American culture in the region. She truly believed the American Southwest was the answer to the country's disillusionment that followed World War I. She invited many authors and artists to her Taos home to further the country's renewal. Among those she brought was John Collier, a social worker.
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