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You are here: Home / Art / Water and a Shell: The Almost Forgotten Work of Elizabeth Eaton Burton

Water and a Shell: The Almost Forgotten Work of Elizabeth Eaton Burton

February 6th, 2013 by Sallie Bingham in Art, Travel Leave a Comment

© 2010 Bo Mackison

© 2010 Bo Mackison

Wandering the lobby of the Mammoth Hotel in Yellowstone National Park last week, I came on a little fountain buried in an obscure corner. The lobby of that Park Service Hotel is largely given over to the needs of the throngs who trample through it in the summer—three million in the three month season—and so details that simply delight the eye are few. And yet here was this highly ornamental water fountain; ornamental only, for the spout as the fountain has been repositioned after the lobby was renovated is too low to actually provide a drink; but that is not important in our land of instant plastic bottles of water at every turn (with the inevitable problems they, or rather our uncontrolled use of them produces).

The little copper fountain has an Asian koi fish motif; it is stamped with the letter B surrounded by two E’s, just below the spigot where they are almost invisible. Burton probably made it around 1910 at the height of the Arts and Craft movement when she was living and operating her studio in California.

A large white shell is mounted under the spigot; it has been worn around the edges by the flow of water, at one time continuous, until a stop/start button was installed.

Like many works by women artists, the fountain has had a curious history. First, it was placed, perhaps at Burton’s suggestion, in a remote corner of the lobby where few would see it.

Wandering the lobby of the Mammoth Hotel in Yellowstone National Park last week, I came on a little fountain buried in an obscure corner.

Then it was removed and stored in a warehouse in Gardiner, Montana, just outside the park gates while the hotel was renovated in 1970. There it might have remained, languishing among other remains from 1937 when the hotel was built.

One of the men working on the restoration saw the little fountain and must have liked it. In 1993, it was brought back and re-installed in its remote corner, and the edge of the shell was ground to re-create its smooth edge.

I like to think that its survival owes something to the slow, painfully slow, gathering recognition of women artists that is one of the great, if unrecognized, achievements of the 20th and 21st century. Perhaps the worker read an article or saw a painting or knew a woman artist he thought ought to be recognized. This snail-slow progression is easy to miss in the hurly-burly of modern life, but it is there—as witness the New York Times article of February 3rd on the rise of women directors in that city’s theatres.

More of that later. Meanwhile I’m celebrating the survival of Burton’s little fountain. After all, Yellowstone was originally called The People’s Park—it was the first national park in this country—and more than half of those people are women.

Fountain photo © 2010 Bo Mackison — seededearth.com

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In Art, Travel Elizabeth Eaton Burton Yellowstone National Park fountain Mammoth Hotel Montana The New York Times

A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

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Taken By The Shawnee

Taken By The Shawnee

July 6th, 2025
Sallie Bingham introduces and reads from her latest work, Taken by the Shawnee.
Visiting Linda Stein

Visiting Linda Stein

March 3rd, 2025
Back on October 28th, 2008, I visited artist Linda Stein's studio in New York City and tried on a few of her handmade suits of armor.

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Rebecca Reynolds & Salie Bingham at SOMOS

Rebecca Reynolds & Salie Bingham at SOMOS

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This event was recorded November 1, 2024 in Taos, NM at SOMOS Salon & Bookshop by KCEI Radio, Red River/Taos and broadcast on November 8, 2024.
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Taken by the Shawnee Reading

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This reading took place at The Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe, New Mexico in August of 2024.

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Pasatiempo, The Santa Fe New Mexican

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