When he was a 9th grader living in a desert outpost, John Emerson needed help with his science project–the use of thermocouples to generate electricity. Most people in 1960s Cathedral City wouldn’t know a thermocouple from a thesaurus. But Emerson…
In Mari Coates’ new novel, real life characters Billie Prigge Seaman, Christina Lillian and the Hillery family are reanimated, as is the beloved little hamlet of Cathedral City itself. I’ve been living with Agnes’ story for more than a decade…
Editor’s note: No one captures the action-adventure ethos of the early desert artists better than Marjorie Reed, best known for her paintings of the Butterfield Overland Stage. You can learn more about Reed from Gary Fillmore, author of All Aboard:…
Editor’s Note: For those wishing to go deeper into Peltonia we’re pleased to present this essay by Jan Rindfleisch. A former director of the Euphrat Museum of Art, Rindfleisch was involved in the earliest days of Pelton’s rediscovery. Here she…
Editor’s note: Agnes Pelton would have been pleased by the mass adulation coming her way. But she would be just as delighted by the personal tales that are cropping up. Pelton’s paintings seem to accompany select people in their lives,…
During a fifth grade field trip in 1966, Sharon Ellis’ class shuffled into the San Diego Museum of Art and listened dutifully as a docent told the children why they should admire a painting featuring a young girl as the…
