Growing up, all Noah Saterstrom knew about his great grandfather was that he had been an optometrist. Those were the only words his grandmother could say about him before she’d start crying. Later, Noah discovers that the reason his family had erased this man was that he’d been sent to the state lunatic asylum. Noah decides to break the generations of silence with a show about his grandfather’s mental illness at the Mississippi Museum of Art titled “What Happened to Dr. Smith.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What is the main story behind Noah Satterstrom's project?
No, she never knew. She never knew that.
She never knew it happened.
I barely talked to them about it. I don't know that I really talked to everyone about it.
I didn't know about it until the New York Times. Until I told the New York Times.
For more than two decades, Noah's only sibling didn't know he spent six months unsure if his life was even real. The tight-lipped ethos ran so deep that Noah didn't even realize he was carrying it out.
I didn't know I was doing that to myself until I let Dr. Smith out of the genie bottle. And then the only way to do that was to, like, be totally open and honest. And all of a sudden, it's like, wait a minute. I've got this thing that's now out that I've been trying to keep. I didn't even know that I was doing that.
Not that I wasn't talking about it because I was ashamed of it, but I was afraid that if I talked about it, I would call it back into my life, like a specter, like a monster, which is maybe more what grandmother was experiencing. Not the shame, but the like, if I say his name, the monster is going to come back to my life.
I'm going to experience all that pain all over again.
And when that occurred to me and I started talking about it out loud and thinking about it, the amount of energy that it took to hold down stuff requires not just the energy of holding it down, but it requires this whole system
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Chapter 2: How did the Dunstan parable influence Noah's storytelling?
The story I discovered that I was able to build out from meeting him at the asylum far outweighs even the pain I think about that, you know, he very likely suffered in the last three months of his life.
And now, with all the context, all the insight, how does she feel towards Hillman?
To put it just, I guess, in a simple word, just a lot of love. You know, I mean, he could have been very selfish. And from what I see of him in the record, he was anything but that. when you look at what, in particular, Blacks in the South were experiencing during that era. Yeah, you know, I mean, 76, and quite frankly, for many Black people, even in the 21st century, is quite an age to live to.
So, you know, when I think about it, it's just, you know, it's mind boggling to think all of this front end of his life gets capped by, you know, three months in the asylum and almost into obscurity.
almost into obscurity. The end of Hillman's life stands out. But the work that Dr. West did ensures that it doesn't define the man. It allowed her to paint a fuller picture. It's not all that different for Noah. For decades, all he knew about Dr. Smith was a headline's worth. He was sent to the state asylum. But Noah's careful not to let this part of Dr. Smith's life become Dr. Smith's life.
The first time I walked into the room that held Noah's paintings, I tried to just stand back and take it all in at once. That was a mistake. As soon as you start to break it down with your eyes, you realize you can't. Noah deliberately refused to set boundaries. Scenes flow into each other like the flow to life.
The courtroom where Dr. Smith had his insanity hearing bleeds into our first view of the old asylum. Hold the last canvas up to the first one, and now it's one painting. The brick from the house where Dr. Smith was born in 1891 matches the brick at the state hospital cemetery where he's buried. There's a loose, impressionistic feel to many of the paintings.
One person is painted in careful detail while the figure or two canvas is over is a blur. In a way, it's a peek behind the curtain, a look at how the artist understands each part of the story. And the craziest part... Noah says this 183-canvas painting, a work that inspired the creation of an entire room in a museum, dozens of panel discussions, and even a New York Times article, isn't finished.
I mean, it is, in the sense that it's ready to show, but not in the sense that he'll never lay a paintbrush on it again.
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