Events

Patricia Schaefer: Modern Desert Soul

My new culture heroes are painters who defy the art school injunction against old-fashioned landscape painting and simply walk outside with a paintbrush. You can meet one such rebel, Patricia Schaefer, tonight (Friday, April 27, 2012) at the opening of her exhibit at Korakia Pensione in Palm Springs. Schaefer was previously known for her scenes of lawnmowers, motel pools and other modernist symbols of urban discontent. But hanging around the desert and hiking its trails made her want to sample an older way. When she first wandered out to try plein air painting she faced a considerable frustration curve. Her…

The Artist as Collector: A Tour of the Lou Armentrout and Mick Welch Collection

By Ann Japenga

John Anthony Conner, the Road to Palm Springs

The love of terrain (common to landscape painters and collectors of desert art) starts in childhood. In my case, ditching high school in the hills of the San Gabriel Valley imprinted me with an ardor for dry ranges. I don’t know if Lou Armentrout and Mick Welch also ditched school, but like me they came to love the land early. In their case: the marshes and fields of Ohio where they both played as boys, and where both later taught school for 30 years. Their childhood attachment to a particular landscape led to a fascination with paintings of the Ohio…

Death Valley Children’s Book Animates the Arroyos

By Ann Japenga

On April 3rd 2012, at Furnace Creek Visitor Center in Death Valley, artist Janet Morgan unveils her new book on the park, along with a month-long exhibition of paintings by Janet and her husband, Gregory Frux. Morgan was already on the leading edge of landscape art in her role—shared with Greg—as an adventure artist. Together the two have traipsed Peru, Patagonia, Antarctica and remote California deserts in the style of early expedition artists. Now the three-time Death Valley artist-in-residence leads the way again in her children’s book Welcome to Death Valley. As two ravens, Ravenna and Ramón, explore the desert…

Terry Masters’ Beautiful Planet

By Richard Calderhead

It was 2010, in Terry Masters’ painting class at Palm Springs’ Desert Art Center. Terry walked to the front of the room and hoisted a large canvas onto an easel. He flipped open his portable plein air kit (battle-scarred from hundreds of painting encounters). Terry is no shrinking violet. At 6′ 5″, he is a Tower of Power. He grabbed a brush (with a very long handle) and began to paint. Not in a placid, controlled, way. He literally attacked the canvas. Watching him was eye-opening: a plein air action painter. Slash! Splash! In Terry parlance it’s “Stab and Drag”: Hit…

David Greene: Mojave Noir

By Ann Japenga

Moving from Ohio to the alien landscape of Wonder Valley, David Greene encountered many wonders—not the least being the desert night. Greene had been working in a toilet factory in Ohio (hand-painting ceramic bath ware), and had never traveled east of St. Louis until friends moved to 29 Palms. He and his artist wife, Lorelei, decided to follow, settling in the hipster outpost east of Joshua Tree in 2005. Back in the Ohio metro area, the night did not entice. There, street lighting obliterated the starlight and moonlight. But in his new home, Greene would walk out after dark and…

Agnes Pelton Revival in Cathedral City

By Ann Japenga

The backyard of Agnes Pelton's house with a view of Mt. san Jacinto. (She didn't have apool) Photo by Christy Porter.

The first-annual Agnes Pelton Birthday Tea–on August 22, 2011–was hosted by Peter Palladino and Simeon Den, the new owners of Pelton’s former home in Cathedral City. Though Pelton died in 1961, her presence at the gathering was as strong as if she had just gone out for ice cubes. The event marks a hometown revival for the artist. For years the city paid little notice that one of the West’s most visionary artists spent her working days here. Recently there’s a growing awareness that Pelton is as important to Cathedral City as Georgia O’Keeffe to Abiquiu. A transcendental artist who…

Early Desert Stash in Borrego, Terry Masters’ Grand Opening, California Watercolors in Pasadena

By Ann Japenga

Bunnie Hamilton had operated her small gallery in Borrego Springs—the Galleria at the Palms at Indian Head–for less than a year when a jaw-dropping collection of desert art fell in her lap. An unnamed collector gave her his comprehensive collection—65 ocotillos, yuccas, smoke trees and dunescapes– by big name desert artists to be sold at auction prices. The all-star team includes John Hilton, Jimmy Swinnerton, Fred Chisnall, Wilton McCoy, Charles Fries, Paul Grimm, Sam Hyde Harris, Darwin Duncan, George Bickerstaff, William Darling, Joane Cromwell and others. A few contemporary artists are included, and there are some seascapes amidst the many…

Visit Agnes Pelton Home, Become a Desert Painter, Appraisal Day in Palm Desert

By Ann Japenga

Get a look at Agnes Pelton’s former home this Sunday, February 10, 2013, on the Cathedral City Historical Society’s Home Tour of Working Artists. The tour spotlights the homes and studios of artists working in the Cathedral City Cove, including photographer Peter Palladino and choreographer and dancer Simeon Den, owners of the Pelton house. The couple is maintaining Pelton’s home—where she painted her most transcendent works–as a shrine to the desert painter. You can see the exterior, at least, on Sunday and see the rest of the home during a major Agnes Pelton celebration April 6th and 7th. Sunday’s home…

Women Artists in Flagstaff, Mystery Painting, Paul Landacre, Desertscapes

By Ann Japenga

Arizona’s Pioneering Women Artists To explore the edges of California desert art, you sometimes have to leave the state. After all, the artists who painted Mt. San Jacinto didn’t pay much allegiance to state lines and many wandered over into Arizona. Arizona’s Pioneering Women Artists at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff (now through May 12, 2013) introduces ten women who roamed the West from 1905-1940. Among them: Lillian Wilhelm Smith, illustrator of Zane Grey novels, and our own stagecoach artist Marjorie Reed. Exhibit collaborators Lonnie Pierson Dunbier, Betsy Fahlman and Fran Elliott have done tireless detective work to…

Terry Masters’ New Gallery, Mark Kerckhoff Classes, Desert Art Center Lectures

By Ann Japenga

UPDATE: This just in from Terry: “I’m now open Thur-Sun noon to 8pm at least and the doors are usually open when I’m working in the space. Please come by soon. The new studio # is 778-8855.” I’ve been lurking around the original Las Casuelas restaurant on South Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs. Peeking in windows and pacing the sidewalk, I may look suspicious–but really it’s for a good reason. The desert’s elusive master painter, aptly named Terry Masters, is opening a new desert art gallery at 370 N. Palm Canyon, next door to the popular Mexican café. In…

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Events

Patricia Schaefer: Modern Desert Soul

The Artist as Collector: A Tour of the Lou Armentrout and Mick Welch Collection

Death Valley Children’s Book Animates the Arroyos

Terry Masters’ Beautiful Planet

David Greene: Mojave Noir

Agnes Pelton Revival in Cathedral City

Early Desert Stash in Borrego, Terry Masters’ Grand Opening, California Watercolors in Pasadena

Visit Agnes Pelton Home, Become a Desert Painter, Appraisal Day in Palm Desert

Women Artists in Flagstaff, Mystery Painting, Paul Landacre, Desertscapes

Terry Masters’ New Gallery, Mark Kerckhoff Classes, Desert Art Center Lectures

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