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09/15/2004: "A New Year-A New Spirit: On to Arizona"
After our New Year celebration I spent several days meeting Michelle's friends, walking around Santa Fe and the Canyon road galleries. I'm afraid I wasn't terribly excited by the art. Maybe I was a little overwhelmed by the natural art forms I'd seen in the sky, the desert and mountains. We made another hike a couple days later up into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. This time we were even further up and everything was covered with snow. A couple Native American boys in a Toyota 4x4 invited us to drink beer with them but I knew they were more interested in drinking with Michelle than with me. Michelle had other plans.
I wanted to stay longer but I had to get to Tucson to see my grandkids. I took off the next day for Tucson. Again the drive was therapeutic. Took a back road crossing through the Zuni Indian Reservation and the El Malpais Natl. Monument where I did another quick water color study of La Ventana Arch ( in Espaniol "the Window".) The country stretched for miles. Mal in Spanish means "bad" and pais means country or land. These were the Bad Lands with signs of volcanic activity eons old. As the sun began to settle in the west I drove along black fingers of lava rock, long dike like lava flow formations in the high desert plateau until it got dark. Then abruptly, somewhere after crossing into Arizona and south of Sho Low along State route 60, I began dropping down the side of the mountain in second gear doing switchbacks hugging the mountainside. Every now and then I'd get a brief view below passing a culvert or if I veered left to catch a glimpse when there was no one coming up in the other lane. The canyon dropped almost straight for what must have been thousands of feet to the Salt River and a little trading post store with lights and cars in the lot far below me. I got to the river crossing at the bottom of the deep canyon then began to climb back up the other side with the engine churning. I was just barely able to get up any speed at all and at times I had to downshift all the way to first gear just to keep chugging up the incline. The night air was calm but chilly at that altitude and perfectly clear. Constellations seemed just beyond my fingertips.
Mountain Top Fire Damage 2003-Daniel King
As I got closer to Tucson I passed through an area that had been burned out by the fires on and around Mt. Lemon the summer before. It was pretty apocalyptic especially at night. Later my son showed me some shots he took from an apache helicopter of the aftermath of the fires.
Got into Tucson pretty late and could see the lights of the city as I began to descend from the mountains to the north. I had to call Dan from a Denny's restaurant to get me on to Davis-Monthan Air Base where he is stationed. 2nd Lt. Daniel King is the Public Affairs officer for the Bone Yard and does some work with the AMARC Air Museum as well. He has a BFA in Media Studies/Photography from CCAD and is a freelance photographer as well. He met me at the main gate. Dan (who is the oldest of two sons), his wife Sarah, Elliot and Tallula live on base. Dan took me on a tour of the Bone Yard the next day to see the old planes and other equipment they preserve there. All my dislike of things military aside it is interesting stuff if only from a visual point of view. Dan has been taking photos of some of the old wrecks for his own artistic interests as well as photos for various military periodicals and on line newsletters. He also takes VIP's on tours, writes press releases and does interviews having to do with events on the base. He joined the Air Force shortly after graduation and prior to 9-11 because he had a family and needed to make a living. He's been fascinated by air planes since he was a little kid and used to work for a colleague at the college, a former Air Force officer who has a Piper Cub. He would have Dan help him both in his hangar and in his studio. Dan always wanted to do aerial photography and finally got his chance recently. He's 25. It is really strange to see older enlisted men salute him when he passes. The next morning I got up and did a small sketch of the golf course behind Dan's little house at the edge of the base.
View From Dan’s Back Yard, watercolor on scrap paper- Walter King
Dan has a photo of a row of F-4 Phantoms, the famous Viet Nam era Jet Fighter. The row of F-4's is quite uncanny as it looks like a blurry memory of the first time I ever saw F-4's back in 62 I think it was. My Uncle Bob was an Annapolis graduate. Played fullback (# 44) in the 50's on the Navy team-I played fullback in little league in grade school. My coach gave me the #4 jersey and said if I scored enough points I would get the second 4 for the next season. Never made it. Uncle Bob was a fighter pilot flying F-4's. Thought it was the coolest thing in the world. My dad took the family to San Diego to visit his sister and Uncle Bob and their 5 kids when I must have been in the 3rd grade. We had a great time. Did Disneyland, swam in the ocean...in fact it was the first time I ever saw the desert as we drove through from Lawton Oklahoma to San Diego along some of the same roads I traveled on this trip nearly 40 years later. Uncle Bob took us to an air show at the base and pointed out a row of F-4's saying "there's my plane". My uncle died in one of those things not long after. It was before the Gulf of Tonken. He was training a new pilot and the tail hook missed all but the last cable while landing on the USS Constellation during a training mission somewhere in the Sea of Japan in 1964. He and his co-pilot were given a burial at sea because the plane disappeared into a deep trench when it hit the bottom of the ocean. They were in radio contact as the plane sank right up until it imploded. So these F-4's, that distant blurry memory, carry a lot of weight for me emotionally. My Uncle and JFK were my two big heroes back then. For me this is one of my son’s finest images.
F-4 Phantoms All in a Pretty Little Row, Retired Viet Cong Killers-Daniel King
You can see more of Dan's recent photography at:
http://www.photoseen.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=Daniel_King
He also has a few things at absolutearts.com. You can find him in alphabetical under "K".
While I was with the kids in Tucson, we took a day trip to Nogales on the other side of the border. It had been a very long time since I'd been to Mexico. The last time was a trip in 72 to Mexico City and Acapulco for two weeks that started in Nuevo Laredo. I saw some of Diego Rivera's frescos then for the first time but didn't really know what I was seeing at the time. I was 18 and hadn't been to art school yet. Still they were powerful and left an impression. Now I'd like to go back to see them again. And once before that during a family trip to California in the early 60's my dad took us to Juarez for a few hours. I thought it would be cool to go there. I'd just finished reading a biography on Benito Juarez in school that year. It really glorified him as a poor kid who became President of Mexico against all odds and quite nearly the salvation of his country. It was a very inspiring story. As we drove into Juarez from the border crossing I remember seeing whole families living in what looked like refrigerator boxes and crates from other large American products. I'd never seen such poverty. The image is still with me 40 + years later.
But Nogales in the beginning of 2004 didn't look so bad. Yeah things were smaller than in the States. There were no huge Wal-Mart Super Centers. I doubt Sam Walton could compete with the prices south of the border. Things were a little shabby with that same patina I'd seen in Cordoba and Alta Gracia Argentina. Some of that has to do with the fact that Nogales, like Cordoba, is built in the desert and things just get dusty no matter what you do. But the homes on the eastern hill overlooking Nogales were as nice as some I'd seen in Italy or Buenos Aires and just as close together.
Shopkeepers were younger, sounded college educated, less desperate with a disarming sense of humor. Sarah was looking at a blown glass punch bowl set when one of the shopkeepers, a young guy about 25 or 26 years old, came out and said he could let her have it for $60 instead of $70. When she said she'd have to think about it. He came back and said straight faced "you know, I can't sell it any cheaper. It was hand blown by my 90-year-old asthmatic grandmother just before she died and there will never be another one like it." We all sort of looked at each other, noticed a very similar set inside the window of the shop, at each other again until what he said sank in. Then all of us broke up with laughter including the young vendedor. Later as we passed back through the same market/alley he caught Sarah's eye again and said he'd let her have the set for $50 if she'd give him her ATM and Credit Card pin numbers. Funny guy.
Loco Gringos en Nogales (Dan, Elliot and Sarah-Tallula is just out of sight in her stroller)
I bought some Cuban cigars in Nogales. Habanas are expensive everywhere which only goes to prove that old Fidel isn't a half bad capitalista in his own right. I don't usually by expensive cigars. And I didn't have my glasses with me that day so it wasn't until we got back to the base that I noticed that one of them had a color copied Cohiba ring on it. But you know I like Mexican cigars and this one was a good one even if I paid the price of a Cubano. The guy would probably get more mileage out of the money than I would. Cuban cigars can be over rated anyway. I put the fake in my collection of rings from all the really good cigars I've smoked. I think it has become one of my most prized.
Can you spot the fake?
I don't usually do this sort of thing but I let a young guy named Cristobal (Christopher) Columbus shine my boots. He just looked like a nice guy who could use the money. He only wanted a couple bucks and 'mi botas' were a mess from hiking around with Michelle in the mountains. He did a great job. Made them look brand new. Even burned off some loose threads. Then Elliot, who is heading on 5 yrs old and thought this whole thing was too cool for words, wanted him to shine his tennis shoes. Chris Columbus seemed to think this was pretty cute so he took out a brush and brushed the uppers. Then he took a soft damp cloth and wiped the rubber parts clean. Then he got out his buffing rag and pretended to buff them to a high sheen. Elliot giggled the whole time. So I gave Sr. Columbus a ten-dollar bill (he only wanted $2 to shine my boots.) Everywhere we saw him that day he would wave to Elliot or come and shake our hands again. I know we acted like silly tourists but mi amigo Cristobal was friendly and gracious and I think everyone we met had fun with us in one way or another that day.
On the way back we stopped at San Xavier's Cathedral, a beautiful white church at the edge of the mountains southwest of Tucson. There was a storm brewing with lightening coming up from the southern horizon. It made the whitewashed adobe glow brilliantly against the dark sky as if some spiritual light were focused on it. There was a wedding going on inside and we were neither invited nor familia so we didn’t want to disturb the ceremony. But what a beautiful and dramatic evening for a wedding in the desert at the foot of the mountains.
Mountains near San Xavier Mission Church
During the next few days we spent time walking around the downtown and university district of the city. The art scene in Tucson is much different than the one in Santa Fe. Santa Fe is slick, facile, commercial- not that I'm against making a living from one's art. But honestly sometimes the packaging and the framing becomes more important than the art itself. Marketing be damned if, in the process of finding the person who loves and understands our passion, we destroy the focus of the very thing we desire.
Tucson on the other hand has that grittiness that attracts me. It is a bit less hi falutin’- doesn't take itself so seriously. The museum has in its collection some of the early western artists who just happened to be fine figure painters and landscape painters. They have a good John Clymer. Clymer was one of the feature artists in a 12 part PBS series back in the early 80's called Profiles in American Art. I did the print graphics for that series winning a couple national awards for design for the Agency and myself. I was Peggy Streigel's art director and head designer and the Profiles design got us into Art Direction Magazine and the American Institute of Graphic Arts annual in 1983. Clymer is also featured heavily in the Cowboy Hall of Fame museum in Oklahoma City. He's a really good illustrator and painter in a technical sense and captures something of the spirit of the old western frontiersmen.
The Tucson Art Museum also exhibits more modern, even post-modern work as well as some really exciting Latino artists worth seeing. There is also a vibrant art school associated with it. Tucson is, artistically speaking a diamond in the rough. The city itself has made some effort to invite its artists to participate in making a cultural mark on the city. That's usually a good sign. But of course it can become a parody of itself as it has in Santa Fe if the wrong heads are calling the shots. But if I decided to move out west I'd move to Tucson.
I spent some quality time with my grandkids, Eliot and Tallulah. Bought them a picnic table for their patio mainly so I could sit outside at night and smoke. I did the whole grandfather thing. My wife has taught the kids to call me Cha Cha- Croatian for Grampa. Took the whole family to diner at a nice steak house the night before I took off. We had a good time.
Elena's Front Yard, watercolor on BFK- Walter King
When I left Tucson I drove straight west towards the desert to Ajo Arizona about 9 hours short of California. Ajo is an old copper mine out in the desert. The mine has been dead for a while but still dominates the landscape with the huge man made hills of tailings that form one side of the city. I eventually found the home and studio of Elena Ray and her husband out on the edge of the desert with nothing but Saguaros and coyotes between their house and the mountains which looked to be about 50 miles to the north. Elena's work evokes the hot desolate country she lives in where things can get either desperate or extremely spiritual. I often think of the description of Christ's 40 days in the desert when I see her work although those are not the images she uses. She has a poetic sense of drama and metaphor and draws from her Hispanic roots, the desert and certain feminist leanings. Elena and I have been e-mailing back and forth for a while over the Internet and when I realized how close I would be while traveling I asked if I could visit. While I like the virtual access digital technology provides artists around the world I really miss just sitting in a real cafe or studio, sharing a bottle of wine and talking face to face with another artist.
We talked for a while in her living room, looked through some of her work in progress in the studio- some small collages with paint and stamps, compared notes about how similar our working process is even though she's primarily a photographer using digital manipulation and the overlaying of images not so dissimilar from my stencil works. We even talked about the idea that somehow artists who only know each other over the internet should try to find a way to physically show their work together so they’d actually meet each other. We played with an idea about a traveling exhibition or book of work curated from the net. It's a good idea. But I haven't had time to start looking for funding yet. Is there anyone out there with deep pockets who might be interested?
Elena asked me about my influences and among a number of artists like Redon, Roualt, Matisse, Diebenkorn and a hand full of otheres I told her I'd liked Ben Shahn's work since I was a kid. Then she took me out to the garage/barn to show me some older work she was storing there and while rummaging through an old box she pulled out a small book nicely bound in linen slid inside a black box- a poem by Wendell Berry illustrated by Shahn called
'November Twenty Six Nineteen Hundred Sixty Three." The poem commemorates the mood of the country after the assassination and during the funeral of JFK. I can still remember the beat of the slow drum as I sat transfixed in front of our little black and white TV in Lawton Oklahoma only a few hours from Dallas watching his flag draped caisson and a rider-less mount passed through the streets of the capitol. I couldn't understand what had really happened at 10 years of age but I felt what I could grasp intellectually. Those same feelings came rushing back as she handed me the book. Then her words knocked the wind out of me when she said I could keep it. What a great gift. I hadn't told her it was the death of Kennedy that began my interest in drawing. I wanted to do a portrait of JFK shortly after the funeral from a photo in Life Magazine. My mother taught me how to graph the photo to make a larger copy. It was really my first art lesson. 20 years later I studied with Joe Ablow at Boston University. Ablow was one of Shahn's proteges.
It was as if 40 years had never passed as we stood outside and talked. The night was crisp and clear, full of stars between the thin clouds and there was a beautiful ring around the nearly full moon reminiscent of the sundog I'd seen earlier in my trip in western Illinois. I felt I was still in the right place. Not so much because of the ring around the moon as for the weight that seemed lifted from my shoulders. Somehow the recollection of JFK's assassination, my uncle and his death at the stick of an F-4 as the Viet Nam war was escalating, my first serious entry into art and my love of Ben Shahn's work had come together in such a way as to release me from some deep sorrow. The early 60's were traumatic times for those of us who lived them. I'd tried to join the Navy like my uncle when I was 17 but the recruiter said I was too young. By the end of high school I was against the war. My number came up at the end of the draft ( think I was 19 by then) but Nixon pulled us out of Viet Nam and I never had to go. I had friends who did and who were in desperate need of acceptance when they returned. I never judged them whether they joined or were drafted. I just accepted them and was glad they made it back home. The country hasn't healed even now. The current Presidential campaign is evidence of that. But that night I wasn't thinking of those things. I felt a little lighter than I had in a long time. I felt quite sure that after 40 years dedicated to making art I had indeed chosen the right path back when I was 10.
Elena told me that sometimes she would step out on to the porch in the morning only to find a herd of wild havalinas on her doorstep. I told her we often ran into wild boars in the city as well. She laughed. We both laughed.
