A Special Place

The old train depot is a place where no train stops anymore. Yet it remains a central hub for Ocean Springians and for visitors. This great old building houses the Chamber of Commerce as well as Realizations: The Walter Anderson Shop. The shop, as we owners call it, is our family business and carries a remarkable variety of serviceable art based on my father's designs. Silkscreens, Clothing, Books and reproductions of his paintings are the main items. But the next generation, has art in the shop, and the next as well. It is an ongoing and evolving place for the family, and an inviting and interesting venue for gifts for Walter Anderson admirers to purchase. I like to drop in for gifts for friends, and to visit with the lovely women who "hold down the Fort".

My father did not support his family when I was growing up. He tried for a while, but he had art to make and, thankfully, Agnes Grinstead Anderson for a wife. Mama saw and understood what her husband was about. You might say she saw the larger picture. She raised us on a school teacher's salary, and kept journals until she had time to be the writer she truly was. This was after daddy died of cancer in 1965. It was also in that year that Walter Anderson's art began to be known.  Now his legacy thrives and the artist who couldn't support his family supports - in ways beyond measure - a whole town.