Now at the Gallery ... California's Painters of the Desert

Our new gallery show, California's Painters of the Desert, was inspired by recent occurrences regarding two of our gallery's best friends; one story is sad, the other is cause for celebration. Both are featured in this June Newsletter.

First, Gary Fillmore, author, owner of Blue Coyote Gallery in Cave Creek, Arizona, and passionate voice for telling the story of the painters of the desert, has died.

Second, Larry Hughes, author and scholar, has just published Rings of Fire, which in part tells the story of how desert artist John W. Hilton gave up his easel for a pick axe and mined optical grade calcite in WWII, and helped win the war.

As a gallery owner, Gary collected and sold paintings by these early artists. As a writer and lecturer, he told their stories. Gary's lifelong interest was rooted in his family history. His mother was Dorothy Leake, the granddaughter of John and Louisa Wetherill, who lived in the town of Keyenta in Northeast Arizona near Monument Valley.

As a child, Dorothy often visited her grandparents. As a mother, she told her young son Gary the stories she heard as a child, stories of the land and of the artists who stayed at her grandparents' lodge. In his book, Shadows on the Mesa, Gary paid tribute to the Wetherill-Coville Guest Ranch and its impressive history.

Initially, Gary set out to write a book about a specific group of artists who came to the guest ranch in 1922. Gary wondered what such a gathering would have been like and lamented that there was no record of what was said over the dining table.

The work was hard, the heat intense. Although he had never eaten better, thanks to the mining camp’s exemption from meat rations, John’s privation of paint was never more wasting. He sketched when he could, despite being regarded by some miners as a gringy artist. He struggled with paint, yet to find his artistic voice amidst the visual din of uncertain swipes of his palette knife. He was painfully aware of the artistic growth that needed to come, but equally aware that the war had to come first.

Yet on one occasion, John found solace in an impromptu plein air art camp. The noted social realist Irwin Hoffman was the brother of the mine operators, and came to Palm Wash to recuperate from a back injury. He sorted calcite in the afternoons but otherwise was free to paint the miners and landscape in watercolor and oil pastel. At the same time, John’s friends, Ed Ainsworth and the accomplished painter Clyde Forsythe, came out to visit. John did not recount his feelings of this encounter, but they must have been a severe mixture of angst and ecstasy. Like the song, Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen, no one can sympathize with a struggling artist like another artist. Imagine the banter and artwork that must have arisen around the campfire during those days! (I am not aware of any of Hilton’s work from this era that survived; Hoffman left about a dozen works that I’m aware of.)

Hilton’s calcite was one of the many small components of the military victory that defeated the world’s fascist nightmare. The Optical Ring Sight was used on shipborne antiaircraft guns, airborne gunnery, and on the bazooka, seeing action in Europe and the Pacific.

For Hilton, war’s end brought a special sweetness. It meant he was now free to paint again, a freedom that would bring him unimagined success, both artistically and financially, in the years to come.

Note: The story of John Hilton, and of the many others who contributed to Polaroid’s Optical Ring Sight, is told in the newly published book, Rings of Fire, by Larry Hughes. The book is about the eclectic collection of disparate individuals who, during a time of crisis, came together for a common purpose in improbable ways with remarkable results.

If you have any information on any of John Hilton’s art work during WWII, Larry would appreciate hearing from you. You may contact him at lhughes@ensafe.com or write to: Larry Hughes, 5724 Summer Trees Dr., Memphis, TN 38134.

Synopsis
Edwin Land had barely settled into his seat on the plane when the flash went off. An idea for an innovative WWII technology that might help eradicate the fascist cancer devouring the free world. It was Polaroid's Optical Ring Sight, which magically projected a bullseye of brilliantly colored rings onto the sky -- like rings of fire -- to aim American antiaircraft guns that previously "couldn't hit the broad side of a barn."

Rings of Fire is the compelling story of American ingenuity, determination, and grit -- told through the personal stories of the amazing people who transformed insight into gunsight. From scientists to ordinary Americans to drifters and ex-cons characterized as "the underbelly of America," they crossed cultural barriers to tackle a shared crisis.

Characters at the mine
-California "desert rat" artist John W. Hilton, whose mining claim supplied the calcite crystals desperately needed for the device, assisted by General George S. Patton.
-Miners Steve Modesto and John Owens, a Cahuilla Indian ranch hand and a white meat-cutter from Kansas, whose friendship led to an astonishing discovery.
-Moonshiner Al Hansen, whose calcite prospecting in Montana started with a lucky strike but cascaded into a wild-west vigiante showdown.
-"Crystal Crackin' Mama" Irene Frederick, whose calcite-crystal processing skills silenced male skeptics and helped rescue the Polaroid project from disaster.
-Edwin Stanton, whose hubris led to a fat FBI dossier and tragedy while prospecting in Mexico.
-Cecil Kegans, a rough Oklahoman with a huge smile, starting his Marine career by fetching groceries for calcite miners and ending it in a bloody pool on Saipan.
-And miner Harry Sikkenga, whose fist fight with a shift boss packed him off to the army artillery, just in time to invade Germany and encounter the horror of Dachau.
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Teamed together, they overcame enormous personal obstacles to produce ring sights for Navy ships, aircraft, and Army bazookas. And afterwards, their product went from aiming the guns of war to the cameras of peacetime -- for television and on the helmets of skydiving videographers. And then, all the way too the moon, aiming NASA's space cameras, culminating with perhaps the most influential photograph of all time, Earthrise.

Larry Hughes unfolds this gripping, never-told story with accessible explanations of the science and the art behind the project, but always lets the colorful characters drive a warm and vivid adventure.

There was a time when painter John W. Hilton’s art career was an absolute train wreck. A year into WWII, the hideous shadows of fascism were creeping across the earth. Hilton had abandoned his easel for a miner’s pick, extracting crystals of optical calcite from a remote desert mine in California, the calcite being in high demand for a “dead aim” gunsight being developed by the Polaroid Corporation for the Navy and Army. The Optical Ring Sight was one of many war efforts that was giving hope to the free world.

But a miner’s life on behalf of a dead-aim gunsight meant a dead-on-arrival art career. That was painful. And at a mining camp full of drifters, ex-cons, and a contingent characterized as “the underbelly of America,” no one had a clue what Hilton’s art-angst felt like.

Then something magical happened.

Deprived of artistic companionship, Hilton phoned his artist friend, Clyde Forsythe, and found him home. How would you and Ed Ainsworth like to come up for a look at the mine? Promised fat, juicy steaks during this time of meat rationing, his two friends hopped in Clyde’s car and found their way to the mine, and to the steaks. In the process, they discovered they’d just landed in Art Camp.

It turned out that the brother of the mine operators, the well-established artist Irwin D. Hoffman, was there also, ostensibly to sort calcite crystals. But during his spare time, Hoffman was painting a series of plein air portraits of the miners. Forsythe was amazed. What are the chances that one artist would turn up at such an obscure, classified location, much less two, and now three?

For the next several days, Hilton, Forsythe, and Hoffman formed their own art colony, trading stories and enjoying their convivial banter, sketching late into the night. Hilton had no time for art in daylight, and Forsythe hadn’t brought his oils. But Hoffman produced a series of watercolors and drawings of freshness and vitality, capturing the personalities of men who otherwise would live out their lives in obscurity. In the process, Hilton surely found some encouragement: in little more than a year, he would leave his pick behind to follow his passion of “painting sunshine.” And Forsythe? It was back to painting prospectors and burros and rugged landscapes with his signature clear-eyed style.

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IN SEBASTOPOL - Sebastopol Center for the Arts
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home of Sonoma County's Art @ the Source and Art Trails
282 S. High Street, Sebastopol, CA 95472  707.829.4797
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IN GRATON - Graton Gallery
home of many of Sonoma County's best artists
http://www.gratongallery.com
Sally Baker, Tim Hayworth, Bruce K. Hopkins, Rik Olson, Susan Proehl, Sandra Rubin, Tamra Sanchez, Mylette Welch
Graton Gallery | (707) 829-8912  | artshow@gratongallery.com
9048 Graton Road, Graton CA 95444 | Open Saturday and Sunday check website

Bolinas
Bolinas Museum
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featuring their permanent collection,
including Ludmilla and Thadeus Welch,
Arthur William Best, Jack Wisby,
Russell Chatham, Alfred Farnsworth.

Palm Springs
Palm Springs Art Museum
Permanent Collection
American 19th century Landscape Painting

Boston, MA
Museum of Fine Arts Boston