Gallery Seven:

Gallery Seven: 2004

2004 was the start of my ongoing relationship with the 7IL ranch, and its owners, the Blair Family. It also marked my first introduction to Goldpoint, Nevada, which has supplied many images for me in the years since, and my first introduction to rock art.

Click on thumbnails for full image

Amargosa Sunset
acrylic on canvas
18 X 24 inches
Amargosa Valley north of Shoshone
Inyo County, CA
2004

We normally enter Death Valley from the east, shortly before or after sunset. Coming north up Amargosa Valley I keep the window down and the camera ready. to catch the spectacular evening light.

The Darwin Dancehall
acrylic on canvas
16 X 20 inches
Darwin, Inyo County CA
2004

Darwin languished in the 1930's after the new highway to Death Valley passed it by. More inhabitants are in the graveyard than in town. But it still sits, sunny and semi-inhabited in the hills above Panamint Valley. It still has its post office, its old gas pumps, its dancehall and at least one dog.

Eidolon
acrylic on canvas
18 X 18 inches
Mojave National Preserve
San Bernardino County, CA
2004

I went looking for this indian rock-art site with an old timer who'd forgotten where it was. He got disgusted, and trekked back to his car. I found the hollow volcanic boulder on my own, and crawled underneath, praying whatever rattlesnakes were on guard there to be kindly. I had saved a small rattlesnake's life that morning, and suggested to her, as she slid away buzzing, that if she had any gifts to bestow on me, I would be gratified. This is what I saw on the ceiling of the tiny cave, and out beyond its low-arched entrance.

On the 7IL
acrylic on canvas
18 X 24 inches
7IL Ranch
San Bernardino County, CA
2004

The Blair family has raised cattle in the east Mojave for a hundred years. The silver-haired gentleman on the right is Howard Blair, patriarch of the family. His son, Rob Blair, with his lasso on the calf, now runs the 7IL Ranch.

Long Ear
acrylic on canvas
2004

When the ranchers first catch their new calves to brand them, give them their shots, etc., they also clip off the tip of one ear. By that they can tell at a distance whether a calf has been attended to. This is a long-ear calf, never been caught, wild as a deer, and perfectly adapted to its desert home.

Short Ear
acrylic on canvas
9X12 inches
7IL Ranch
San Bernardino County, California
2004

This is a short-ear calf. He's been caught before and branded. He doesn't know it yet, but this time he's about to be separated from his mother for weaning, so that she can regain some weight before winter.

Rob Blair on Chester
acrylic on canvas
12X12 inches
7IL Ranch
San Bernardino County, CA
2004

This is another scene from the same branding session which produced "On the 7IL" and "Short Ear".

Howard Blair
acrylic on canvas
9 X 12 inches
7IL Ranch
San Bernardino County, California
2004

As I was photographing some of the activities around the branding corral, Howard Blair suddenly popped up in front of me; he had been crouched down, building a little fire for coffee. I got a snapshot of him.
"He has such a wonderful face," I thought, I must get a really good picture of him sometime."
Weeks later I realized the one I had was perfect, with his dazzling grin, his lopsided stance, his shirt half out of his dusty jeans, and his big, gnarled sunburnt old hands. I painted him exactly as he was and loved it.

Ora Mae
acrylic on canvas
18 X 24 inches
Goldpoint, Nevada
2004

From 1942 to 1967, Ora Mae Wiley was the Postmistress of Goldpoint, Nevada. Her husband, Harry Wiley, a Nevada State Senator, died in office in 1955. Goldpoint was a mining camp whose mines shut down in the 60's. The Post Office shut down soon after. Ora Mae lived on in Goldpoint, which had become a ghost town. She died in 1980 at the age of eighty-three.

Hare Among Thorns
acrylic on canvas
9 X 9 inches
2004

Many artists at Death Valley Art Show paint spectacular wildlife... moose, elk, bears, mountain lions. I had said I would only paint such animals as I could see and photograph in the wild, and so far that has not included any of the above.

Fullerton's Claim
acrylic on canvas
12 X 12 inches
MDHCA Headquarters, Goffs
San Bernardino County, California
2004

Bill Fullerton was an amateur performance artist and a professional curmudgeon, a joker with a razor wit. He could also restore any old building, all by himself, or take it apart and build some other fanciful and useful structure out of it. He had been missing from the activities at Goffs for a long while, and was known to be battling cancer.
Then he reappeared, looking surprisingly well. It was in 2003, I had my new digital camera. Half joking, I asked Bill to pose for me. I knew he didn't do things like that. But this time he did.

The Golden Spike
acrylic on canvas
24X36 inches
Golden Spike National Monument
Promontory, Utah
2004

In 2003, I had my paintings of the ghost town Tybo with me in Death Valley, in hope of tracking down the mine-owning gentleman who suggested that I paint them. Several people tried earnestly to buy "The View From the Store" off me, and I just as earnestly refused. One of these was a lady from Virginia. She called me a month later and asked if my man had ever come for the painting. I told her that he had. "Well," she said, "I'm sending you a photograph I took on the way home from Death Valley. It's Promontory Utah where the railroads came together and they drove the golden spike. It has these wild sunflowers in it. I'll commission you to paint it if you're interested."

You are Here
acrylic on canvas
11 X 14 inches
Route 66 west of Goffs, California
2004

Once the Mother Road became a cult destination, its black-and-white metal US Route 66 signs started disappearing faster than they could be replaced. Road crews then stenciled large US Route 66 logos directly on the pavement. Occasionally they succumbed to the urge for creativity. At two locations along the route, a stenciled dot and the message " you are here" appears. One is, I believe, somewhere in Oklahoma. The other is just west of Goffs.