Moral Compasses

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker has an excellent opinion in Today's WaPo, The party of Trump is already a convention of ghoulish clowns. I recognize that many of you can't get through their paywall and offer the last two paragraphs for your perusal.

It’s a terrible time to be a conservative, in other words. You hate the Democratic platform but you can’t abide the president. Which party keeps the best company? Biden with his protesters and climate-change dreamers? Or Trump, who embraces QAnon, white supremacists and skinheads?Unless Trump pulls a covid-19 vaccine from his sleeve Thursday, I’m placing my bets on the goodness of the American people. My wager is that most would prefer a guy from Scranton, Pa., whose moral compass has been forged through suffering and humility, to a quack from Queens, whose moral compass is a wheel of fortune, where the needle always lands on Me.

If You Live

Virtual Vacation

Many of us are going stir crazy not being able to travel and explore, I know that I am feeling it. Miss my travelin' shoes.

I thought that I would include some of my past travel shots for you in order to quench your thirst to move...

If you close your eyes and pretend you just might feel like you have hit the road.

No shots, no jet lag, no baby's crying next to you on the plane.

Have a nice trip!

My two favorite young guitar players

8/20/20

I have been dished out some scuttlebutt this week from friends and readers unhappy with the blog in its present state. Yesterday one confided that she really didn't go for the local history angle, another writes that there is too much of the material from my shop on its pages lately and they feel like they are being sold. He wants more politics.

Let me say a few things right off the bat. This blog, now in its thirteenth year, is a labor of love, not a job. I get no money from this ridiculous expenditure of my time. God forbid I should promote my business on occasion, something I have rarely done in its entire tenure.

But honestly I have not used it as a selling machine, more to display merchandise that is unusual and tells a story and that I feel like sharing with you. One of the things that got me into the business was my love of history and antiques and art scratches that itch for me, I was a collector before I was a dealer.

Every thing I own has a story and gives me an opportunity to research, one of my passions. I thought it would be cool to share that passion with you, not to sell, but because I find the material honestly interesting. Now I realize that some of you are not into stuff and I get it.

I mentioned a week ago that I had a bit of a writer's block. And also that I was sick of politics. What is politics today? It basically narrows down to cheerleading, our guy encompasses all that is good, your guy is a complete asshole. No room for nuance in any form and very toxic and needlessly divisive.

It makes me ill. I care about issues and I write about them but politics is ugly, especially in its present form at election time. Might I suggest Facebook? There is plenty of rah rah stuff there.

I have said this many times but I don't believe that there are actually any undecided independents out there at this point and if they are truly in the dark they probably have no business voting. I am not going to be changing anybody's mind with my opinions so what is the point of hammering people with a different pov over the head? My feelings about Donald Trump are clear and have not changed. You are entitled to your own.

I was talking to my friend Jay the other day and he said something interesting. He once asked his parents how they were going to vote and I forget if it was his mother or father but he was remonstrated, told never to ask that question, that it was none of his business.

I think that is very healthy. Too many people automatically take on the politics and religion of their parents rather than thinking for themselves. I did the same thing honestly, my father a centrist democrat, my mother a little further left.

Read or don't read, it is up to you. Sorry to disappoint you. Hopefully there is something I put out that you will enjoy. Art and history are two of the things that I am interested in that I can get into without broaching politics and I sought refuge in them. Will see where things go in the future. I frankly, have no idea.

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I was thinking of the covid plague and all of the things it has taught us that we can actually do without. The sports page, dine in restaurants, international and domestic travel, watching sports, handshakes and in some cases smiles, a whole bunch of things.

And hair salons. I found out that my wife is a darn good haircutter. I saw my barber a while back and he complimented my coiffe, said he had fixed a lot worse haircuts that people had paid money for. I'm so cheap I might not ever go back to a hairstylist again, if she is willing.

Double Scoop

I was curious and pleased when I got this week's issue of the New Yorker.

Could it be? I checked the signature but it was rather vague...

I peered inside. Yes, Wayne Thiebaud, one of my favorite contemporary artists, had painted another cover, called Double Scoop, his ninth for the magazine.

Thiebaud is pushing the century mark, he is a fellow scorpio who will be one hundred November 15th of this year.

He is that rare artist who has never stopped improving and looking at his subject, truly a gem, his shadow color, his brush work.

Look at the bold red color on the right of the cone, picking up the absolutely right luminous tone and highlight from the table.

Perfect.

I have been privileged to sell several of his paintings in my career.

Bravo to a brilliant artist. He, like much of his work, is a sweet and rare confection.

John Prine

Happy Birthday, Jim!

My friend Jim Swan, second from left, turns 81 today. I don't see Jim very often but I know he is still an eighty one year old big kid.

He and his wife Janice left Fallbrook for greener pastures in Tahoe a few years ago. I miss them.

Jim and I used to partner paintings together and had some real scores in our time.

This picture was taken during a boating weekend in Catalina, at the Wrigley Memorial.

Julius Wangenheim

Julius Wangenheim

Will Chandler sent me a cool pdf. He amalgamated the five part biography of Julius Wangenheim that was published in 1956 and 1957 by the California Historical Society.  Link to the original here.

It should prove interesting to lovers of San Francisco, San Diego and California history. Julius Wangenheim was a very important and instrumental person in the building of modern San Diego. He recounts interesting anecdotes about his childhood in the Bay Area.




Another article on Klauber Wangenheim here.

Funnily enough, I found myself doing research on Julius's father, Sol Wangenheim (1830-1919) last year after running across it both in my California history studies and my family genealogy research. Who was this early California merchant whose name kept popping up in my studies of early California, from pickles to grain sales?

Sol Wangenheim came to California in 1853 and started a wholesale food business in Virginia City, near the Comstock Mine. Interestingly, Waggenheim was a name his older brother actually rather randomly picked, the real family name was Levi.

In 1864, when production slowed in the Comstock, Wangenheim moved his store to Markleeville in Alpine County with his brother in law Simon Neumann (Newman).

Sol and Simon were incredibly successful, from pickles to grain, salmon, banking and more. Sol had a large cannery in San Francisco with a branch on Chipps Island on the Sacramento River and was also owner of the Pacific Vinegar and Pickle Works.

Perhaps he palled around with my great uncle Sam Sommer, another wealthy San Franciscan who was involved in hair products and banking and lived on California St..

My great grandfather Moshe Sommer was a veterinarian who lived with them as a young man but left shaken soon after the earthquake. His wife was not allowed into the United Sates due to a medical condition so he hightailed it back to Poland.

Will doesn't know this, but I happen to be related to the Klauber and Wangenheim clan.

Denrich Press wrote an autobiography of Sol Wangenheim in 1916. It is expensive. I hope I get to read it one day.

Antique Sioux tobacco bag

The Blue Heron Gallery is pleased to offer this pristine, circa 1880, Sioux pipe or tobacco bag. These bags were worn by Plains Indian males in ceremonial functions.

I was told by the man that I bought it from that this bag was deaccessioned from a museum in Northern California.

It still bears an ink registration number inside the lip of the opening. It actually hangs straight but we created a cardboard insert to hang it and it has thrown it off a tad.

I sent it out for some minor restoration. The bead work was perfect but there was a little bit of porcupine quillwork missing and the bottom fringe was stiff.

The repairs sound minimal but it gets expensive to do this sort of repair work the right way and I was willing to wait and spend the money.

It was gone for close to five, six months. I just got it back. I am really happy with the results.

It is very rare for me to get great plains material or frankly any great Native American merchandise these days.

I'm just not seeing it in estates and it is so very expensive at the shows, when there were shows anyway.

Iconographically, this bag is pretty cool. There are four teepee shaped forms in the glass bead panel and a teepee chevron pictured below in the quilled slats framed with two light H shapes and four subtle crosses.

I am not sure what the mushroom shape on the top of the teepee or stepped pyramid shapes represents, if anything. In addition three tin cone quilled strands hang vertically down the center of the bag.

I really like the blue bead background color and you can note the yellow ochre color rubbed into the leather above the bead panel. The top portion has some lovely green beads that set everything off wonderfully.

Made out of tanned deer hide and sewed with sinew, it is pretty doggone fabulous.

I am not an expert on these bags, which held sacred pipes and tobacco. Have had three of four great ones in my time but maybe never one this good.

You can see them in many old photographs of Plains Indians, like this shot of Running Bear and Crow Man.

All of the 19th century Plains indian tribes wore these sorts of pipe bags and there are subtle differences between the Crow, Ute, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Blackfoot and Sioux styles.

I am pretty sure that mine is from the Lakota or Teton Sioux but would love to know if I am wrong. Lakota means affectionate or friendly in their native tongue. The other two Sioux peoples are the Santee and the Yankton.

My pipe bag is 38" long in length, with 19 & 1/2" to the bottom of the bag itself and another 6" to the bottom of the quillwork.

I think that this one will probably sell rather quickly but I will be happy to enjoy it as long as I can.

Sold

Diana Ross

Read the mail and current events

Possible huge new hydroelectric project cutting through the Cleveland National Forest towards Camp Pendleton.

Project applicant Nevada Hydro is seeking a permit to operate the Lake Elsinore Advanced Pumped Storage Project ("LEAPS project") from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. If built, the project would generate electricity onto the state's electrical grid, but it would require installing 32 miles of 500 kV transmission lines and towers through the Cleveland National Forest, just west of Lake Elsinore, Wildomar, Murrieta and Temecula.

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Reader Trendbuster sent a nice letter regarding my article on the Temecula Gorge:

hi robert,
nice write up on the railroad, as usual.
some the best pics i’ve seen of the railroad in the canyon are found in a book called “santa fe: steel rails through california” by donald duke and stan kistler. long out of print, but readily available on the used book market.

on the topic of local history, i’ll take a moment to plug a couple more books worth a read:
pioneer notes from the diaries of judge benjamin hayes, 1849-1875
old time cattlemen: and other pioneers of the anza-borrego area by lester reed
hayes immigrated to socal through warner springs and became the circuit judge for our area. reed ran cattle from hemet to borrego.

 Reader Carilyn offers something similar:

Robert...loved seeing the gorgeous old photo of Temecula, it really is a dandy. All the history and stories, Jack Dempsey, shootings, etc. all that is so interesting.  I remember growing up there were two books that we had, all about the history of the area, One was Three Paths Along the River and the other was A Thousand Years in Temecula Valley, both by Tom Hudson.  I have them and just happened to look up the last book, it was going for over $900.00.  That has to be an error, right?  And that was a paperback. 

I own both those books, the hardback of the latter and a signed first of the former. They are definitely my two local favorites, the thousand years a synopsis of Hudson's chronicles in the High Country newspaper way back when. I also saw the price of $985 on Amazon and wanted to choke. I guess anybody can ask anything, trolling for a sucker...

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My buddy Jeff has a life in Alaska that I could only dream of. It is called living right. With his planes, work schedule and remote cabin, his commutes often entail hundreds of miles. But the benefits are plain to see as well, like gorging on fresh blueberries at his place in the middle of nowhere.

I think he said he ate two lbs. of wild blueberries in about forty five minutes.

Speaking of which, Leslie whipped up a great bunch of blueberry pancakes a while back that were so delicious.

She made her own "buttermilk" with vinegar. So yummy! Giant old school pancakes.

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Ricardo sent something thought provoking:

The Fantasy and the Cyberpunk Futurism of Singapore — WIRED.

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Shawn sent a nice letter regarding pests and biologic controls:

Yobro,
Sorry to hear about the palm attack. Just want to pass on a little IPM experience.
Probably 20 years ago, I got involved (deeply) in working to try to save thousands (probably 10's of thousands) of Samui's coconut palms. Since I was raising semi-rare seed-grown palms I early on noticed a 'foreign' pest that was attacking all sorts of palms, but primarily the coconuts. Got involved with the UN-FAO and their team that had been working with date palm loss due to borers and leaf-eaters.
The 'solution' came in the form of a Fijian parasitic wasp. Vietnam had been struck badly by the same pest and the trial solution was to import larvae of this tiny wasp which lays its eggs in the body of the healthy hosts' larvae. These hatch inside the larvae and eat them from the inside out. Being the only host known to support the wasp, once the pests die out, so do the wasps.
FAO set up a training program to train scientists at Thailand's Universities, who in turn trained local/provincial scientists, who in turn trained local 'farmers' how to breed the wasps, a portion of which were released and the remainder were meant to be used for more propagation. After training, farmers could go to the local government office and pick up tiny test tubes of "mummies" as the egg-bearing pest bodies were called. These were put into small fishing floats (with 'escape hatches' cut into them) and hung from coconut trees. Upon hatching from the mummies (really, upon eating their way through the host bodies) they fly into the nearest pest-filled tree, mate and immediately search out a host larva into which they lay their eggs.
Well, everything worked really well, except for the "people" who found it easier to just keep returning to the government office to pick up a 'free' test tube of mummies rather than do the breeding portion of the program themselves. The poor local guy doing the breeding for them was working 20+ hours a day and couldn't keep up.
I helped him out for a while, training my crew, building relations with various tree cutting crews and the elephant mahouts who fed their charges with coconut leaves. But after a few weeks I went back to the government and asked if they would have any objection to my commercializing the process. They didn't, and so we started offering a service to local hotels (mostly, but in reality - anyone who would pay!). I took on the SE corner of the island and a couple others took on other portions.
Happy to say, after about 6-8 months we managed to pretty much clear the island! (Think Kauai with its deep valleys and otherwise "untreatable" interior). Think we raised some millions of wasps over the course of a year or so. My crew sat in front of their TV each night, sweeping larvae into tupperware boxes, introducing the wasps and raising the mummies which we then put into the fishnet floats and hung from trees. Of course, as we got close, the community inspiration to continue fell off and the whole thing kind of faded away...and then the next palm pest came along! Oh well!
Anyway, have a look at the IPM options. You might just find a way to protect your beauties! We have had two other major palm pest infestations since (rhinoceros beetle and now a moth larvae) both of which have IMP solutions...if anyone is willing to do the work! I will say, it was quite a profitable business model!
Alohahaha and good luck!

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Interesting article I found on the I ching. And another by the Spanish author on race and intelligence.

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Covid 19 now #3 cause of death in United States. Americans are eight times more likely to die from the disease than Europeans. According to the County, 385 confirmed cases in Fallbrook as of this afternoon.

Artistic vérité

Crystalline dream with notes of peach - © Robert Sommers 2020

Before I took photographs I painted and sketched, with varying measure of success, on a parabolic curve that often vacillated between sublime and dreadful.  I was too neurotic to be a full time painter frankly, you tend to be only as good as your last work.

There is a vulnerability to painting that I don't feel in photography where often I work more as a documentarian. But this post is not intended to plumb my personal neurosis, I wanted to talk about something else.

The generally awful website FStoppers published this article the other day; Inside the Mind of a (Former) Purist Landscape Photographer.

The author, a young photographer from the Philippines named Nicco Valenzuela, seems to advocate for an approach to photography that I find personally abhorrent.

Like putting fake skies in and compositing photographs and things like that. Actions that my inner referee says are completely over the line.

A little history. When I started digital photography, back in the late 1980's, there was no Photoshop yet and practically no other tools either. So I had to invent something. I was forced into creating my own technology, cobbling from crude old paint programs like Corel.

I was the co-president of an environmental group and I had to go to Washington D.C. to give a presentation. My cohorts asked me if I could possibly create some digitally manipulated slides and I said that of course I could. Then my pride forced me to come up with a solution. Which I ultimately did, but I was definitely sweating it. There was no technology extant to do the things I wanted to do back in 1988. Worked out fine in the long run.

Back then there was one digital art gallery in San Diego. We were all at the dawn of a new age. As a painter I took to it like a fish in water. Because I could see very early that it gave us a newfound facility to manipulate graphic imagery in a powerful way.

I started with the camera somewhere around 1964, playing with my step father's Rollei.

Later I went through a succession of Voigtlanders, Topcons and Konicas, not having enough money to buy a Nikon or even a Pentax, the camera which dominated the market when I was coming of age.

There have always been philosophical battles in photography between the pictorialists, the early photographers who took a painterly and sometimes tonalist approach to their work and the later modernists who insisted on sharp focus and strict representation. Both approaches have merit.

I like both camps, I think they both have their proper place. But I think that when you (figuratively) frame a work as a documentary image rather than a graphic piece of art and do things like stick a double sized moon in or a fake sky you are committing fraud and visual malpractice on the viewer. It is plainly deceptive.

Not everyone will agree and that is fine. We all adhere to our own rules of the road. I have created a lot of fanciful images but I never try to fool the viewer with my representational work. When I am manipulating graphic imagery, you know it.

There is a difference between free artistry and creating a breach of visual trust, in my mind anyway. There are several artifices that have found favor with the current crop of landscape photographers.

Shooting a daytime exposure to capture foreground and then shooting the identical vantage again at night to get an astro shot and combining the two is one. Adding a big fat moon is another.

Personally I don't feel good about things like that, a shot is still about a single moment of time, old fashioned guy that I am.

That doesn't mean that I won't put a snake on the moon at times, I will. But hopefully nobody is under the impression that I actually saw one there.

Obviously what we need is a new lexicon and terminology for the various approaches. You can wear an artist's beret, a representational documentarian's hat, an abstract non objective chapeau, basically anything you want to wear.

But when you start conflating the various hats with the intent of pulling the wool (or brim) over people's eyes, I think it is a disservice to whatever artistic craft you happen to represent.

Futurist snap, Seattle

Post modern storm

The Heartland Grain Co-Op in Luther, Iowa got hit pretty bad with the derecho last week, wreaking havoc with the metal buildings.

My first thought upon seeing pictures of the devastation was that people paid de-constructionist architect Frank Gehry real money to basically come up with the same design motif.

 

I am sure that the storm was tragic financially but the aftermath was still beautiful in a design sense.

Superstar

Arranged and conducted by Richard Carpenter.

Temecula Canyon Photograph

This is a very rare photograph from my collection.

In fact I believe that this 11 x 14" silver gelatin print of the Santa Margarita River is the only known copy in existence.

The Santa Margarita River Valley, the place where I live, was also once known as Temecula Canyon.

As I have written before, the railroad was built through the canyon on three separate occasions, and flooded out and destroyed each time. The last time was in 1915. A piece of the trestle still remains up river.

The local natives told the railroad men that they were not building the tracks high enough but they would not listen to the "dumb indians." It proved to be the downfall of the railroad track.

In fact local lore was that the local Mission Indians would congregate on the top of Gavilan Mtn. to wait out the storms and floods below. Having been stranded in the canyon by the raging river with Leslie for two weeks in 1993, I can appreciate the power of the water.

One can not overstate the importance of this railroad section through the Temecula gorge. This was the principal link between Colton and Oceanside and subsequently San Diego and people were afraid that the sleepy young town of San Diego would be cut off from civilization after the railroad was washed out in the big flood of 1884.

But the winter of 1883-1884 proved to be one of the wettest on record for Southern California. Rainstorms in February brought tremendous downpours, the result of the Krakatoa volcanic explosion half-way around the world, which spewed so much ash into the skies as to alter weather patterns all around the globe. Fallbrook experienced over 20 inches of rainfall, resulting in a total washout of the tracks through the Temecula canyon. The California Southern Railroad suspended rail service to Temecula, and the effect on the company’s finances put them on the brink of bankruptcy. But the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad stepped in, providing enough capital to repair the link between Fallbrook and Temecula. Several hundred laborers, including Chinese, quickly set about repairing the line, which was re-opened less than a year later on January 12, 1885.Rail service continued but the leaders of the Santa Fe Company had lost faith in the viability of an inland route. By 1888, the company completed the “surf line”, connecting Oceanside to what is now Orange County, which provided a desired link to the prosperous trade center of Los Angeles. Santa Fe began moving their offices to San Bernardino, with the view of focusing their operations on the Los Angeles market.Frequent washouts and another disastrous storm in 1891 sealed the fate of the Temecula line. Santa Fe ceased operations to San Diego on January, 1892. Service continued from Temecula to Colton for the next 40 years, with train service ending for good in 1935.

There are several different geographic locations listed as Temecula Canyon but I believe that the term was a broad designation when this photograph was taken in 1904. I believe that this particular spot is several miles north east of me past Morgan Springs. I have not hiked to this spot in over twenty five years. The last time I did I saw golden eagles resting in their eyries in the high rocks on the sides of the steep gorge. And I readily admit that I could be wrong on the exact location, it may be located closer to the SMER property.

This photograph is ink signed Fernald Photo. This is interesting as both Frank Fernald and his wife Catherine were early Temecula photographers. I assume this is Frank's work because it is ascribed to him on the back, or verso as we say in the business. Purportedly, Fernald was the only local photographer in the entire area until he taught his wife how to operate the camera too.

Frank Fernald wore a lot of hats, he had a bicycle shop, was a mechanic, quarryman and photographer. Unfortunately he also found himself wrapped up in a tangled story of local history that involved a shooting. He sold the gun to Horace Magee that shot Louis Escallier and Constable Preston Van Swanguen.

I loaned this photograph to the Temecula Historical Society for a lecture last year. Another interesting thing is that it was once owned by Fronie Jane Welty (1879-1958) the daughter of Richard and Mary Jane Welty, who built the Welty store and the Ramona Inn, where a man might seek "liquid refreshments," play slot machines and cards and shoot a little pool in the otherwise dry county.

They also built the Welty or Temecula Hotel, which still stands downtown and where if memory serves, the boxer Jack Dempsey once stayed, or so the plaque outside once read. It was here that the tragic Magee shooting occurred and there was also a boxing ring installed upstairs. Fighters came to Temecula to train. Jim Jeffries, Jack Sharkey, Jack Dempsey and A.D. Wolgast were among the fighters who worked out there.

I have had it so long that I don't remember when or where I picked this up but I like having one of the oldest shots of the river I live fifty feet from the banks of. Oldest one I've ever seen or heard about anyway.

Kind of cool old frame too.

Palm crisis

Phoenix Reclinata

Nothing defines Southern California like our palm trees. The native Washingtonia Filifera or Robusta, the spectacular Phoenix Canariensis, the dates and the roebellinis. And they are all apparently under attack.

I had heard rumblings but things are really getting serious. The trees are being beset by a variety of evils but the principal one is a borer called the Black palm weevil or Rhynchophorus palmarum. It can kill a healthy Canary Island Palm in 49 days. This really concerns me personally as I have a magnificent reclinata as well as a mature canary at home as well as many other beautiful palms.

A prominent arborist told me yesterday that a Fallbrook Palm Nursery is already under quarantine from the invader. I need to do some more research on the subject because it appears that there are other pests around attacking palms too, like the palm borer Dinapate wrightii which is going after the fan palms. Another is the red palm weevil, or Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, a nasty and particularly ferocious asian import.

Sadly, there is no current cure for the infestations. The bugs tend to attack unhealthy trees. All you can do is remain vigilant and cut the dying trees down and remove them before the borers spread.

I hope that our trees are spared this nasty fate.

Merle Travis and Joe Maphis

Just say please.

I got the following message on my website the other day, from a tax consultant in La Jolla:

Hello, We are administering an estate that we believe is in possession
of an original 1943 _______ Painting (among other artists). We
would like to get an indication of the potential value of this piece.

I wrote back a rather terse comment:

So you want some free help and you don't even want to say please. No thanks. Robert

I got a rather nasty message back about how rude I was and that of course they would have been willing to pay but now will be finding somebody else to help them because of my obviously bad attitude. I won't include the followup emails or the name of the person, it is pointless. And perhaps I was a bit harsh.

But honestly there is not a week that goes by where someone doesn't try to milk me for free information and to do research, sometimes extensive, on something they own. Like it is my job here on earth to serve them. And there is rarely a please involved or an offer to pay. They take the newfound knowledge and seek top dollar or send the thing to auction and the person who does the free research is quickly forgotten. Rarely am I ever offered the material in question.

And I am getting sick of it, this getting sucked dry. You wouldn't do it to a doctor, lawyer or even a tax advisor or maybe you would? And honestly, after you do the research for these people I would say you get payment or reciprocation less than ten percent of the time. It is no wonder things get adversarial between dealers and sellers.

You want to benefit from or exploit my knowledge and expertise, ask nicely and don't demand. Maybe even offer me something for my time. It's usually not necessary but it is definitely nice to be asked.

Tom Tomorrow

One note samba

You can hear where they borrowed both the dating game riffs and little spanish flea from this excellent version of the Jobim song.

Summer reset

Birds and a bunny - Gene Kloss (1903-1996) oil on board - Blue Heron Gallery

It is hot in Southern California, the thermometer is tiptoeing on either side of 100 degrees and the humidity is nearing 50% as I write this post. Hot and clammy. But not totally unbearable, in fact it has its own distinct charms.

I talked to my painter, art dealer friend Gordon for close to an hour when I got home, first sitting in my car and then sitting in a chair in my garden while I heard his wonderful stories.

I bought my first artwork from Gordon, then Rick Griffin's agent, forty five years ago. We have known each other for a very long time.

As we talked on the phone I watched bunnies and squirrels scamper around all over the palm and succulent garden, the nutmeg mannikins taking a dip in the bird bath, the male quail strutting around, all of the fauna at my place just operating at maximum overdrive. Fun to just sit and watch. The world may be embroiled in all sorts of plagues and politics, the critters don't pay it any mind at all.

Reminded me of this Gene Kloss painting, one that I own and which once hung in her kitchen.

Yesterday as I left for work I was startled by a young bobcat running out of my neighbor's field and across the street. A white bob on the tail, this cat was no bigger than a house cat and its coat was a beautiful deep orange red.

Wild cats in my area come in all colors, from buff and fawn to very dark, they are all different. I have never yet taken a picture of one, they happen so fast; you are lucky to see cougar or bobcat let alone grab a picture of them.

The latter feline is an incredible creature in its own right, I have watched one at night effortlessly jump a six foot fence from a crouched position and their hind quarters are very powerful indeed. I hope that I am lucky enough to get a decent puma or bobcat shot one day.

I called my neighbor on the other side to tell her about the sighting and she said that the bob kitten had been in her yard several times the last couple weeks. We both wonder where the mother is and if we are dealing with an orphan at this point?

Will have to keep an eye out for our own kitties in the yard if the bobcats are hanging around. Something strange was eating outside my  bedroom window the other night but I never went out to check what. Lots of screech owl action every night too.

Leslie just came home. Said she had a young rattlesnake in front of her on the way home. she snapped a shot. Less than two feet long but already five rattles.

It didn't coil but made a succession of backwards s's as it turned around and backed into the brush. Quite polite.

A neighbor told me they saw a black shouldered kite in the valley the other day, sorry, now known as  a white tailed kite. Haven't seen one here in a long time.

Enjoy your summer. We are living through a very powerful and strange time.

Got word that our old friend Jack Kopol died yesterday. Jack was a dear man, came to our wedding. Loved by all. Godspeed Jack.

Monarchs of the Forest

Having ran test shots on the plates two weeks ago, Dixon and I pulled our first series of prints from the old printing blocks yesterday on the manual press. Many of you have inquired about the possibility of buying them and we are limiting our production to very small open editions.

We ran ten of the old car driving through the Wawona tree, four Monarchs of the forest and two of the Tunnel view shots yesterday afternoon.

If we sell these we will print a few from the other blocks. I am itching to have one of the pear pickers in the central valley pictures as I particularly love the artwork in that one and plan to color it up with Martin's dyes.

They are all pencil signed by the printer, Dixon Fish, and printed on very heavy and high quality French Arches 88 printmaking paper half and quarter sheets that you can cut and crop to your desired size.

We selected a dark but slightly sepia ink color for these views of pristine California.

The price of these prints is forty dollars a piece. I believe that seven are now spoken for out of this initial run so if you want one or a couple, please speak up now.

These are old blocks and some of the block height elevations are slightly irregular. Because of that these prints have an old timey, organic look to them that I find very pleasing. Not perfect but very nice. They will look beautiful framed.

Let me know.

Postscript: Nine of these prints are now spoken for. Dixon and I will be running the pear pickers print and one other yet to be decided some time this week. Let me know if you want a different one and we will do what we can.