Finally something to blog about. My first book is published! Check out https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C7S9NWFW

It’s been over a year since my last post, one that was way more affected by Covid’s stubbornness than we had hoped or expected.  I finally turned back to one of my planned retirement activities, to add articles to Wikipedia about some of my favorite, but underrepresented online, print artists whose work I collect. There are three new pages. My target this time was Kansas printmaker and illustrator Herschel C. Logan, one of a group of Prairie Print Makers. There is a companion List of Works page as well.

Last year I acquired two of Logan’s woodcuts that were on my “most wanted” list, Dust Storm and Tornado, both from 1938.

Like his other woodcuts, these are rendered in precise and detailed lines, with a wonderful use of massed black and shading. Most of his other works are serene, nostalgic scenes — farms and fields and trees, small town buildings with names like “Church in the Valley”, “The Old Blacksmith Shop”, “Country Store”, etc., reminiscent of “the good old days”. These two late works exhibit a remarkable and true sense of menace familiar to citizens of the mid-west.

After more than two years in the making, my catalog of the works of artist James E. Allen is finally online! — https://exhibits.stanford.edu/james-e-allen

First versions of several articles appeared at this site, but the full catalog and exhibit includes a lot more.

I took a break from slogging through the minutiae of citation verification for my James E. Allen catalog to put together a small article placing a series of Allen’s etchings of skyscraper steel workers next to historical photographs of the day — James E. Allen – Artistic and Photographic Inspiration. Though there aren’t direct one-to-one connections, I think the similarities are striking. The photographs were popular and widely distributed, so I have no doubt such images would have been a source of inspiration for Allen’s work.

I think I need to mention new articles here in the blog to let followers know of additions to my site. Check out “Of Pipes and Men“, about artwork devoted to the least visible yet ubiquitous elements of our industrial infrastructure.

While retired life lets me be distracted by any number of personal projects, it’s the unexpected scope of my current project that has has occupied me most for the past 6-7 months. Last summer I added a Wikipedia entry for James E. Allen, an artist, printmaker and illustrator in the early decades of the 20th century (and subject of a previous entry). I then wanted to make a complete (as possible) inventory of his works. Little did I know then the scope of the task.

As part of the Social Realist movement of the time, Allen is best known for his etchings and lithographs showing ordinary men at work — everyday heroes like the builders of skyscrapers and makers of steel …

… or the layers of pipe, and builders of ships.Allen also had a 30 year career as an illustrator of books, and of popular fiction and advertisements in magazines like Collier’s, Good Housekeeping, and Saturday Evening Post. Those of an age might remember the very popular booklet he illustrated for the Sinclair Oil Company:

Yet there is no comprehensive survey of his works. Hence my mission.

There was a fairly complete print catalog from 1984, and a listing of his magazine illustrations in an online index called the FictionMags Index. I started with those sources, intending to just bring them up to date — easy, or so I thought. Here’s what I have learned:

• The “fairly complete” catalog was for an 1984 exhibit of his prints at New York’s Mary Ryan Gallery. It was extensive (91 works) but not exhaustive. I have identified 124 prints so far.
• Likewise, starting with a list of 80 illustrations from the FictionMags Index, I have identified nearly 200 magazine stories and 25 books he illustrated. This however is likely some fraction of his 30 year career as a commercial artist.
• The large majority of illustrations started as oil paintings. What has survived has gone to private collectors and shows up occasionally at auction. Sadly Allen late in life destroyed much of that work left in his studio so many paintings may never be seen again. I must turn to their reproductions in magazines to identify a significant body of his work.
• I was pleased to find a good number of magazines digitized and online through Google Books and library sources. But while 122 magazines I sought were online, only 21 had acceptable imaging of the illustrations — the others were black and white scans rendering the illustrations useless. Compare these images, one an online scan, the other taken from a copy of the Dec 30, 1931 Collier’s: Even the clear image is a half-tone reproduction with only one color added; we can only imagine what the original painting looked like.

So I have become a magazine collector of sorts. There’s a large and lively trade in collectable vintage magazines, and I have sought out as many of Allen’s illustrations as I can afford. It’s often pretty cheap, Ebay to the rescue! But when an item is particularly rare and pricey — e.g. $500 for the 1934 Good Housekeeping that introduced Donald Duck — I have turned to the generosity of sellers to take pictures for me.

Here is my current stash of 110 old magazines. Ladies! Good Housekeeping has many articles on cooking and cleaning for the harried homemaker. Guys! check out the new attachments for the Midwest Engine Company “Utilitor”, or the latest roadster from the Dort Motor Car Company.

So where am I? This could be a never ending project, but I am close to wrapping up an initial body of information. I will work with the Stanford Library folks to see what kind of permanent home can be made for this catalog where it can continue to grow. I have one more trove of information to mine first — I was pleased to get get in touch with Allen’s three grandchildren, who have treasures passed on to them from their mother, Allen’s daughter Charlotte. I look forward to a research jaunt to visit them soon, to discover and photograph some unique items not found in the Smithsonian archive of Allen’s papers.

But now, I must get back to my data entry …

I promised a followup on the good, the OK, and the ugly of accessibility on our last few legs of the trip. Between staying with friends in Massachusetts and Oregon, we stayed in fine motels in Cleveland, Davenport, Rapid City, Billings, and Boise. The overall score — Good: 3, OK: 1, Ugly: 1.  We start with three places below with easy parking, flat thresholds, and roll-in showers. None had doors that stayed open on their own.

Red Roof Inn, Cleveland, Ohio — Good

Each room had dedicated parking and a flat path up to the room. This one gets the top prize for the spacious bathroom.

Super 8 by Wyndham, Davenport, Iowa — Good

A close contender for top honors. Though we didn’t partake, note the pool had accommodation for the disabled.

Super 8 by Wyndham, Rapid City, South Dakota — Good

One unusual aspect — the accessible rooms were not on the first floor, but down this lovely ramp. Note also the extra shin-level phone in the bath!

Red Lion Hotel, Billings, Montana — OK

This was just ok because of the standard bath, which is of course fine for a range of abilities especially with the added grab bars.

This feature would have elevated it back up to good — had it worked!

Inn America, Boise, Idaho — Ugly

OK, we booked an accessible room with accessible bathroom a month in advance.  They sent us to this room, clearly not even close to accessible.

Back to the front desk, where we were assured we got an accessible room … see, it says “Communication assistance”!  This means a room for the deaf. First, even that was untrue — such a room would have have an exterior bell with a flashing light inside, a similar visual fire alarm, etc. This room had nothing.

Back to the front desk … to paraphrase: “oh, well, you see, all the accessible rooms have Queen beds and you booked a room with a King and the one thing we can’t change in assigning a room is the type of bed”. I checked; the listing says “King, accessible”.

I got a printout from the computer they worked from, where the accessibility requirements were clear. But there was simply nothing they could do for us, and they were so very sorry.  There was at least an accessible bathroom in the hallway, sigh.

I felt sorry for a late night shift that were clearly unprepared and unable to do anything, but that didn’t stop a poor review, and I reported it through hotels.com where I did the booking. It was taken seriously — I got a formal response, a refund, a future voucher, and a belief they will work with the hotel on standards; who knows. I will likely avoid Inn America in the future since I know of others with poor experiences with this chain.

I’ll wrap up our adventures with our journey west, during which we visited with John’s niece and were joined by our great friends Tony and Joy for the bulk of the return trip. Because this is a tad long, I’ll do a separate accessibility update.

Amherst to Chicago, by way of Cleveland

It took two hops to get us to Chicago early enough to meet Tony and Joy and to join John’s niece Lynanne and husband Kuyar for a lovely lunch at Inspiration Kitchens just west of Chicago. I indulged in a plate of biscuits and gravy. mmmmmm

I had made the fortunate error of forgetting we gained an hour that second day. That meant we could meet early at nearby Garfield Park Conservatory.  Here’s a shot as we left the parking lot (that’s “Johnny on the spot” if you are having trouble with the fine print), plus sadly the only picture I took inside the immense and remarkable indoor gardens — multiple adjoining greenhouses each devoted to a theme, e.g., ferns, or cacti and succulents.

Our first (unscheduled) stop as we hit the road was Trainland U.S.A.  We knew we had to stop when the sign said it was the largest train display in America. It wasn’t, but it was quite large, the effort mostly of one man since 1964. A long U-shaped space with train scenes both sides, divided into about 20 or so regional themes from Florida to New England to the midwest, mountains, and California. A fun bit was that each segment had several buttons to press that would animate a little scene — a porter carrying bags, a log loader, spotlights, etc., even fireworks. It was all very charming and inventive. Here’s a slideshow. Note the feline friend at the end … there were a bunch of friendly cats on the grounds.

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We saw the Iowa State Capitol building in Des Moines in passing, Then at a rest area we saw up close the immense size of the blades for the wind turbines dotting the landscape.

Now in South Dakota

Next was one of our favorite stops, the Porter Sculpture Park, a collection of crazy metal art, the work of one Wayne Porter, seemingly in the middle of nowhere just off the freeway.

This is just a taste, plus there were a lot of stories and poems on signs interspersed, including this one relevant to our trip. The artist himself was onsite, so we had a chance to chat him up as well.

Our next roadside attraction was this remarkable 50 ft statue called Dignity of Earth and Sky in South Dakota.

We made a new friend at Wall Drug …

… stopped to wave at some giant stone faces — I think it’s the Beatles …

… then we were on our way to the Crazy Horse Monument.

I had heard the stories of the stubborn crazy man (Korczak Ziolkowski) who labored for decades practically alone to create a mountain sized monument to the American Indian.  A large new welcome center, museum, movies and artifacts gave a much more sanguine picture. The artist had worked on Mt. Rushmore and was a respected sculptor. His vision was not just his new monument, but that it be the center of a Native American cultural center that included a museum and the Indian University of North America. His stubbornness in accepting help was in large part a reluctance to yield control lest these larger objectives be lost. His family has carried on his work since his death in 1982. As you can see, the face is finished; the horses head comes next.

Here comes Wyoming

Devil’s Tower came next. It’s hard to appreciate the sheer size up close, much less in a picture; it loomed above the landscape from a considerable distance away.  Fun fact, the hexagonal columns are not basalt, a common extrusive igneous volcanic rock, as I had always assumed. Rather it is phonolite, a less common extrusive igneous volcanic rock with an “intermediate chemical composition between felsic and mafic” (look it up)

Impressive in its own way was this menu item at a nearby cafe. Since I had already had my biscuits and gravy this trip, Tony took a hit for the team.

Montana for a bit, back through Wyoming and into Idaho

We made a strategic decision to stop in Billings rather than go on to Bozeman in order to take a diagonal through Yellowstone the next day by entering the NE corner. Little did we know what an adventure that would be. It was beautiful as we began to climb, 3000, 4000, 5000 feet, fabulous vistas opening up beneath us

The road narrowed, the switchbacks sharpened, 6000, 7000, 8000 feet with no sign of stopping. 9000, 10000, at just shy of 11000 feet we reached what appeared to be the top, an extensive geological “dike”, a sheetlike layer of rock several miles across, covered in new snow.

There was a minor hiccup as we encountered, along with other travelers, a gate they had forgotten to unlock, cars queued on both sides, wondering for a bit if we might have to go back the way we came. But all was well, and it was a spectacular way to enter the park. Alas we were not there to linger at famous sites but during the drive we spotted a lot of wildlife and roadside geothermal activity.

The day ended with a Boise State Capitol drive-by

On to Oregon

The remaining drive was uneventful, with stretches so far from civilization that they exceeded the apparent extent to which my iPhone navigation buffers a route. It was fun to watch us fall off the end into an empty Tron-like landscape.

Our last night was at Tony and Joy’s new house in Ashland. We were treated for my birthday to an Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of the Rogers and Hammerstein classic Oklahoma!, which featured same-sex couples for the two main romantic pairs and a multi-cultural cast. The endeavor was played straight so to speak, with the same earnest and innocent charm you’d expect. The gender fluidity was taken completely naturally, adding a layer that made the story feel more contemporary. For instance, the song “I’m just a girl who can’t say no” sung by the character Ado Annie, can be done as innocent and flirtatious in keeping with the times it was written. But Ado Andy’s hilarious interpretation to his boyfriend certainly spoke more directly to me!

Back in California

It was good to be back to our familiar surroundings are our cats, who have stuck closely by our sides since we got back. Here’s Jonah and John immediately after settling in.

We’ve actually finished the trip, but the days were so packed I had little time to catch up in the evenings, not to mention the spotty internet performance in hotels. Part 1 ended with our arrival in Ohio and a lovely stay with the MacDonalds, specifically (from right to left and a bit wind blown) John’s sister Carolyn, her youngest daughter Kathlyn, visiting nephew William, and visiting aunt Kathleen. To the right is the photogenic Kirby at his front door spot where he looks out for visitors.

From Ohio on we had 6 continuous days of stays with family and friends, which meant great company and home cooked meals! So there are no accessibility updates in this installment.

Our stay in Vienna

It was a short day’s drive to Vienna, Virginia, just outside of DC, with William riding along. There we stayed with Kippy and his human companions Ellen (John’s younger sister) and Brian.

First night we were treated to a lovely fancy fondue meal to celebrate multiple recent and pending birthdays. With apologies to Ellen for the photo, but this was the kind of fun we had, sampling from multiple pots of cheese and chocolate, stuffing ourselves with melted goodness and generally making a mess.

The visit was about family and friends. One evening was a large extended Klemm family gathering — 19 guests as I recall. Here we see surprise guests Aunt Joyce and her daughter Vicky, plus John looking startled as he shares a laugh with his brother Jerry.

On the final day in Vienna our Kurdish friend Heval came down from his summer job in New York to travel with us for a few days, and we had a nice dinner out with a bunch of John’s friends from high school that he stays in touch with.

Heading north

We got a very early start on our drive to Massachusetts to avoid the horrible DC beltway traffic — the estimated travel time dropped more than an hour from a later estimate.  We needed the time because this was the only day we had to visit with my sister Madelyn.  A long hike by the Smith College lake gave us time to relax and talk, Here we see Madelyn communing with nature and Heval cavorting on a precarious log while on the phone!

We sadly had to say goodbye to Madelyn as she went off to Provincetown, a long planned outing with a good friend from high school. We enjoyed the hospitality of Dennis and Elizabeth, both formerly of Stanford, for our two day stay. We met their new furry children, sisters named Moxie and Sprite (despite different patterning, they share the same small white mittens and long white leggings).

Day 1 we had an outing to the Beneski Museum of Natural History at Amherst College, a rather amazing collection.  That’s Heval and Dennis behind John in front of Triceratops, and Elizabeth confronting Tyrannosaurus Rex.

We had lots of time to relax at home. Here we see Heval exploring Dennis’ new (to us) tree house, and Elizabeth showing Heval how to shuck corn for the first time — fresh sweet corn for the aforementioned home cooking.

The second day Dennis had to leave for New York while we explored nearby sites just north of Amherst, some new even to Elizabeth … Poet’s Seat Tower, Turners Falls (former falls actually, now a dam-controlled spillway into a canal), and Mount Sugarloaf overlook. That’s the never camera shy Heval perched atop the corner of both the tower and overlook.

Final Morning …

… we had a fine breakfast that included home-made corn fritters from the preceding night, then we headed West, dropping Heval off in Springfield for his return to NY.

To be continued …

(If you are here for a followup to the award winning 19 part series on motel accessibility from our last big trip, check the end of this post)

Here we are, already on day eight of our latest driving adventure, but our somewhat driven pace (pun intended) hasn’t left me time to write.  Here is a map of our journey (click image for a larger view),

We wanted to start the trip putting as much distance as possible under our wheels and backload the trip a bit more so the return trip didn’t seem so punishing. Plus we have travelers joining us for segments — cousin William from Ohio to DC, our Kurdish friend Heval from DC to Massachusetts, and finally Tony and Joy with us from Chicago all the way back to Ashland.

It’s a different kind of travel for distance, sticking to the interstate at the expense of enjoying backroads. But middle American offers a number of great diversions just off the road.  Or should I say “greatest” diversions.

We saw the “World’s Largest Easel” in Goodland Kansas, which is better described as a giant work of art on the worlds largest easel. Note John sitting in the van down at the bottom left for scale

Look for it next to “Bubba’s Meat Block and Wild Game Processing” and “Bill’s Shootin’ Shop”

Then there’s the “World’s Largest Ball of Sisal Twine” in Cawker City Kansas. Some 43 feet around, over 8 million feet of twine weighing in at over 20,000 pounds. Started by one man, it was adopted by the town after his death and added to by townspeople and visitors.

Note that this is NOT the largest ball of twine by a single person, as has been pointed out by someone who cares 🙂 That honor belongs to a ball in Darwin, Minnesota.

Next comes the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle in Collinsville, Illinois. However, skeptics must ask — can it claim to be the world’s largest catsup bottle if it contains no catsup, only water? We think not!

Finally in our “greatest” lineup, is this wonderful office building and world’s largest basket, the former headquarters for the Longaberger Basket Company now sadly out of business.

Fellow explorers Kathleen, William, Kathlyn, Carolyn and John. (click image for a larger view)

Two other special stops. This large and quirky Abraham Lincoln Memorial Monument was at a Rest Area just east of Laramie Wyoming. A 12.5 foot bust of Abe sits atop a 30 foot granite pedestal. It’s rather impressive gazing in person, and looks a little less like a giant robot Lincoln.

Our favorite roadside attraction was the Kaskaskia Dragon in Vandalia, Illinois, built by a local propane expert for the hardware store of the same name.

Buy a dragon coin at the mart across the street and here’s what you get:

Another great thing we saw … there were lots of warnings about watching for animals in the hilly parts of eastern Nevada, but a number of these bridges as well … they are animal crossings!

Finally a parting shot, John with a friend at Little American, Wyoming.

A tale of accessibility, part 20

In this trip I have decided to omit remarks about the homes so generously opened to us by friends and family en route. It’s the to-be-expected steps and doors and has been hardly been an inconvenience. One place lacked a bathroom on the main floor, but a nearby rec center provided a fabulous accessible shower in a private cabana.

So only two motels to comment on. I give both low marks for handicap parking (the few spaces were filled by the time we got there somewhat late) but high marks for interiors.  Wide doors with no thresholds, rooms easy to get around in and good bathrooms:

The Microtel Inn and Suites in Salt Lake City

The Best Western Plus in Columbia Missouri

A closing story about the second motel. I checked in at the desk, giving my name and saying we had a prepaid accessible room. “No problem Mr. McRae” … we got our key and went to the room, and no way was it accessible. You’d be lucky to get a wheelchair even into the bathroom. So I went to the front desk, to the very same person I had checked in with only 10 minutes before, and asked if we had been given the right room because we needed accessibility. Here I paraphrase for brevity:

“Oh,” she said, “I’m afraid the accessible room is booked”.

“Someone is in it”, I asked?

“No, but it was prepaid.”

“And no one is in it?”

“No, they haven’t shown up.”

“Is the name on that reservation ‘McRae’?”

You can guess the rest.