Posts Tagged ‘ Cabot Yerxa ’

Cabot Yerxa: The Theosophist-Artist of Miracle Hill

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One hundred years ago Cabot Yerxa scraped a dugout into a clay bank, claiming a 160-acre homestead on a patch of sand alive with wind and water spirits. (Today we call them energy vortexes.) He spent $10 on a burro, Merry Xmas, then later built a Hopi-style pueblo of 35 rooms, now one of the most beloved handmade houses in California. Desert-dwellers know this story. But you might not know that Cabot traveled with a sketchbook and paints strapped to his burro. You might not know that he was pals with Jimmy Swinnerton, Agnes Pelton and Carl Eytel, or that…

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Burt Procter: A Cowboy Modernist on Miracle Hill

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Up on Miracle Hill in Desert Hot Springs, the pueblo-builder and snake-tender Cabot Yerxa took painting lessons from his neighbor, Burt Procter, while Procter’s young daughter Ginny played on a packed dirt floor, sprinkled down with water to keep it cool. Procter had purchased land from Cabot and planned to build a cabin next door to the Pueblo, now a tourist attraction. He would be the first settler in Cabot’s dreamed-of arts colony. While the colony never materialized, Ginny and her parents often drove out from Corona del Mar in the early 1950s to camp on their land and visit…

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Indian Wells Destroys a Cherished Link to California Art

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Indian Wells Destroys a Cherished Link to California Art

November 21, 2010–Anyone driving down Highway 111 last week saw that the long-dreaded demolition of the Carl Bray Gallery has begun. A crew first tore off the roof that the artist had painstakingly reinforced with steel beams salvaged from the Indio railroad yards where he worked. By Friday, the 18-foot fireplace—made with stones from Berdoo canyon as well as favorites from the Bray kids’ rock collections–was exposed to view. The Indian Wells City Council voted to destroy the last trace of the town’s original village despite an outpouring of public dismay and the findings of an official environmental review saying…

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