Tag: Lula Mae Graves

Postcards From Mecca: How to Save a Desert Artist

by Ann JapengaJanuary 9, 2019 • 6 Comments

In the last couple of years I’ve feasted endlessly on 2,000 historic photos of the unexplored desert east of the Salton Sea. Taken by 1930s Mecca postmaster Susie Keef Smith and her cousin Lula Mae Graves, the collection offers an…

The Golden Age of Warner Graves: Back to the Canyons

by Ann JapengaMarch 31, 2018 • 5 Comments

With so many international artists now sampling desert themes, it’s refreshing to meet a painter who is not a tourist but is genetically rooted in this place. Via his grandparents, Warner Graves III is connected to many epochal events in…