Dancing with My Father

Leif Anderson's Dancing with My Father is both a loving tribute to her unusual and famous father, Mississippi artist Walter Anderson, and an honest look at the effects he has had upon her personal life and her artistry. Due to Walter Anderson's erratic behavior and recurring absences, Leif Anderson experienced a difficult childhood. Never comfortable with home and fatherhood, Walter Anderson often affected family life as an alien and fearsome force. Through her lyrical vignettes, Leif Anderson gradually comes to accept and, in the end, to cherish the artist's intense presence and his influence on her dance and her performance art. Many previously unrevealed glimpses of Walter Anderson as artist, naturalist, husband, and father are offered throughout the book. Brush and ink drawings by both Walter Anderson and Leif Anderson further the author's vision of making peace with a paternal legacy of brilliance and pain. Dancing with My Father grapples firmly with two artists' lives and portrays forgiveness, acceptance, and reconciliation.