More Real Women, More Real Effort

 May 12, 2022

   Day three of the Real Women of The Wild West prologue illustration marathon search. I contemplated creating a huge plywood map and cutting out the shape of the U.S. with a table saw. Ultimately realized I don't know anybody with a table saw and went back to plan B, which is, Dan asked me to gang shoot my favorite photographs so he could drop them into Photoshop and play with the concept in his computer. So, I did just that.

Midwestern & Southwestern Women

And, we musn't forget these serious women.

East Coast Biddies, Part II

   And, to me, this one is just a stand alone.

Mojave Maiden

One Last Batch of Real Women

    I'm still interested in creating a painted version of the outline of the U.S. like this:

Daily Whip Out:

"Rough Rider of Real Women Map Mosaic"

   And that is a rough of this great photograph from Judy Crandall's "Cowgirls: Early Images & Collectables." An excellent resource.

Helen Rue at the Tri-State Round-Up

at Belle Fourche, South Dakota

"It's the way you ride the trail that counts."

—Dale Evans

Westward Women, Part II, Work In Progress

 May 11, 2022

   Worked most of the day on yesterday's premise for the prologue to the Real Women of the Wild West book. I decided to check in on some of my map heroes for inspiration.

A George Avey Classic Arizona map

   And, I also asked myself what one of my fave illustrators would do with this assignment?

Barry Blitt Is So Damn Good

I personally like the illustration approach, but Dan thinks the cartoons cut against the grain of the title—REAL Women, and that all of my REAL tintypes of anonymous photos of Western women would work better.

   So I found a big piece of plywood and leaned it up against a chair in the studio and eyeballed on a quasi-shape of the U.S. and slapped some of my original photos on it, and also some old photos I got from our morgue and it came out like this.

First pass at Westward Women

One Problem

   Our book starts in about 1820 and, of course, the U.S. did not look like it does today.

A map of the United States in 1820

   And, I kind of like it that there's a big, fat, empty space out there in the West, but Dan thinks it won't work if you can't recognize the current shape. Hmmmm. Not sure I agree with that, but I do know it has to read at first glance. What do you think?

"There are those who follow maps, and those who make them."

—Alberto Villoldo

Uptight East Coast Bitties

 May 10, 2022

   Working with Dan The Man on a doubletruck illustration for the prologue of the "Real Women of the Wild West" book. Jana has a great opening line that goes like this:

"There were two Americas for women in the 1800s. While the Victorian Era was strangling women in the East, the West stood as a physical and mental opposite."

—Jana Bommersbach

   So, how might we illustrate that? One way would be to have a gaggle of old photographs laid out to form a mosaic of the United States. You know, like this.

Women Photos Form A Mosaic of The U.S.

   Dan likes the concept but thinks that is way too busy and suggests we shoot it on a neutral background. Agreed. Also we talked about showing the east coast as uptight bitties and then as the photos spread out across the Mississippi we get wilder images of women, some native, all looser and more free. First we needed to find some uptight Victorian women to populate that eastern seaboard, and, thanks to Google, that wasn't too hard.

Uptight East Coast Bitties

   Now to create the foundation and the transition into the mosaic. Here's the beginnings of the eastern seaboard. Shot this right on the kitchen floor.

South Florida Coast Looking North

   Need even more bitties and a few more farmer women, but those aren't hard to find.

   If we can pull this off, it just might just be a classic poster.

"Grammar is the difference between feeling your nuts and feeling you're nuts."

—Old English Teacher Saying

A Sneak Peek at The Real Women of The Wild West

 May 9, 2022

   Got a few women on my mind today. A certain tennis playing army wife, for starters.

Martha Summerhays playing tennis

at Fort Apache in 1874

   An Apache grandmother who escaped slavery in Baja and walked 1,000 miles without a map to make it back to her home in the White Mountains of Arizona. Here she is crossing the Colorado River and she couldn't swim!

Diltche Crosses The Colorado

And then there are the sinners and the saints. Let's start with the first kind.

Big Nose Kate Could Light Up A Room

Bruja Wandering

Life On The Line

My Favorite Senorita

Cathouse Request: Santina Por Favor

   Of course, not everyone out west was a loose woman. There were the women from my tribe.

Sharlot Hall

   And then there are the women I'm related to.

The Wit & Wisdom of Honkytonk Sue

   And the women I admire.

Zulu Vaquera

And the Zany females with the quick wit.

Hey, Pendejo, My Eyes Are Up Here!

Not to mention the women who stole my heart.

The Girls Who Knocked Me Out

And then there were the ones who got away.

Prisoner Or Mate?

   And finally there is the whole lotta lotta.

Whole Lotta Lotta

   Of course, what does all this mean for the book, or for that matter, the world we live in?

"If I am asked how we should account for the unusual prosperity and growing strength of this nation, I would reply that they must be attributed to the superiority of their women.”

—Alexis de Tocqueville,  Democracy In America, 1835

Postscript

   French sociologist and political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) traveled to the United States in 1831 to study its prisons and returned with a wealth of broader observations that he codified in “Democracy in America” (1835), one of the most influential books of the 19th century.

Laughing Uno And Quatro Lottas

 May 8, 2022

   It's Mother's Day, so naturally I asked the mother of my children to help me pose a certain dog with some newly framed paintings.

"Uno Y Uno, Dos, Tres, Quatro Lottas"

   We had Guzal at Art & Custom Frames down in Scottsdale Airpark frame all four of my Lotta Crabtrees I did for the Real Women of The Wild West book and here they are lined up in the breezeway. I shot a couple and I call this next one 

"Laughing Uno And Quatro Lottas." 

   Speaking of attractive mothers, here's one back in the day.

Vogue model Maye Haldeman

   And here she is today.

Maye Musk

"Wanna feel old like me? Elon Musk's mother is 16 months younger than I am."

—BBB

Classic Philosophical Questions And Classic Cowgirl Profiles

 May 7, 2022

      Got a bug up my butt, as I'm oft to do. Got this sweet little silhouette portrait of a cowgirl in my head and I can just see it.

Daily Scratchboard Whip Out:

"Classic Cowgirl Profile"

   Of course, I was inspired by this sweet image.

Elsa Dutton from "1883"

   We are pushing it to finish our "Real Women of the Wild West" book this summer.

Are Drivers Getting Crazier Day by Day?

   It seems like every time I have to go into town, the drivers get worse. Two days ago I dropped Uno off at Doggy Daycare in Carefree and came around the backside of Bashas' when this crazy kid in a banged-up Hyuandi came careening out of a side street, without even stopping, and turned right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and laid on the horn, but of course, the little twit ignored me and sped on.

Somehow I resemble This Remark

   There's 7.5 billion people on earth and somehow I'm the best driver?

Local Tooter Hits 42

   This little Tooter sitting on the doorstep of our Cholla Bay rental beach house turns 42 today. 

   Like her mother, she is a total beach person, as you can see here in this photo from 1982. Happy Birthday Deena C.!

History Is A Moving Target

   Here's a shocker to some of my friends: there is no liberal world order and there are very few solid rules without someone to enforce them. We have this idea that the arc of history bends towards progress and justice, but it's actually only as good as each generation is at duking it out, over and over again. The historian Anne Applebaum puts it even more bluntly: "There is no arc of history, nothing inevitable about either democracy or dictatorship. what happens tomorrow depends on what all of us do today." So, when Roe vs. Wade goes down, and it will, there will be another fight, and then another. Same with democracy. It has to be fought over every single day and it doesn't help any that most of the institutions designed to support it are passe or in decline. And that would be service groups (think Rotary, Soroptimists)

   Still, in my tribe, whoever gets closest to the current truth, wins.

"True West is True North, first with the truth and the American Way."

—Scott O'Connor

Marshall Under The Knife Yesterday

 May 6, 2022

   This guy and I go way back. Both of us grew up on Route 66 where we both pumped gas and we both loved playing baseball and studying Old West history. Here he is back in 1942 wearing his daddy's boots and ready for war.

Marshall Trimble, 1942

   And here is Marshall with his beautiful wife Vanessa, with me at the 2015 True Westerner Award presentation at White Stallion Guest Ranch outside Marana, Arizona.

2015 True Westerner Award winner

   He is just the best. He had some serious surgery yesterday and this is how he told us:

"I'll be singing, When they operated on Daddy they opened up Mama's male."

—Marshall Trimble

   Here is an update:

   "It turns out the aneurysm was larger than they thought. The size of an adult heart. The surgery took an extra hour, the walls of the aorta had thinned quite a bit so they had to do quite a bit of repair. The doctor and nurse said it was a rare and complex case. It could have ruptured at any time. He is in good spirits and very thankful to the ER Doc who found it and basically saved his life. They may let him go home tomorrow! Please pass this on to the True West Team. Thanks Bob!"

—Vanessa

"I spent so many years in the fourth grade they gave me tenure."

—Marshall Trimble

Johnny Weinkauf Custom Made Boots & Rio Rico In The Rearview

 May 5, 2022

   What do you do when your wife is eight-and-one-half months pregnant with your first child? Well, if you're like me, you go down to the Old Pueblo and pick up a pair of custom made boots by Johnny Weinkauf, put them on and head south for a history research trip, stopping at Rio Rico Resort for some Zs, then a quick trip across the border for good Mexican food at La Roca and back to Rio Rico for a picture.

My new custom Weinkauf boots,

April 16, 1980 at Rio Rico Resort

photo by Kathy Sue

   The next day you would take your very pregnant wife to Mescal Springs and hike out there to see where Wyatt Earp allegedly shot and killed Curly Bill. Then you speed over to Tombstone to go in the O.K. Corral.

   I know what you're thinking, how in the hell is this insane guy still married to that poor woman? Frankly, I don't have a clue, but here we are four decades later!

One of those custom Weinkauf boots

still has a prominent place in my studio.

   Oh, and what about the baby Kathy Sue was carrying around Cochise County to term? Well, Deena C. turns 42 in two days. So, Happy birthday number one daughter!

"I'll be singing, 'When they operated on Daddy they opened up Mama's male.'"

—Marshall Trimble who had an operation this morning. Let's all send him good vibes.

The Longest Shot And Texting vs. Flying Uteruses

 May 4, 2022

   Tonight you will get the first look at the longest shot in the West. That would be this one:

Billy Dixon's Scratch Shot

   Is there scientific evidence that proves it's possible to shoot a rifle 1,538 yards and actually hit a target? I think you might be surprised by the answer to that question.

Daily Whip Out:

"Billy Dixon With A Borrowed Big Fifty"

Sometimes I Feel Like A Nut

   In 22 studies of 44,000 people researchers found that those at high risk of cognitive decline tended to have better outcomes if they ate more nuts—specifically walnuts. Thank you Kathy Sue, for buying me all those walnuts. That is your name, isn't it?

And Speaking of Nuts

   A fair amount of people in any era hate new technology (I hate texting for example) and develop unfounded fears about it. For example in the 1860s there was alarm about the high speeds trains were reaching. This report in the British Lancet underscores all sorts of dangers about train travel, including reports of headaches, deafness, sleeplessness, depression, numbness of limbs, softening of the brain, epileptic seizures and apoplexy.

A January 4, 1862 report

on public health and train travel

   Some "experts" even claimed a woman's body was not designed to go 50 miles an hour and predicted that their uteruses would fly out of their bodies if they rode in a train going that fast. 

   "Of course, quite a few uteruses did fly out, but at least the women weren't texting."

—A certain nutjob cartoonist

   And, just in case you thought I was making all of this up and this is just some kind of a joke.

The Health Dangers of Texting

   A news report in The New York Times yesterday cites an increasing number of U.S. citizens reporting physical ailments from texting. Physical therapists in New York are seeing "more patients than ever with pain as well as joint and soft tissue ailments such as tendinitis in the fingers, thumbs, wrists, elbows, necks, shoulders and upper backs—and that mobile phones were most likely playing a part." One expert cited in the article said, "while so-called smartphone pinkie isn't an established condition, using your pinkie to hold the weight of your phone could lead to problems."

"The more things change, the more they remain the same."

—Old Vaquero Saying

Peruvian Angles, Zephyr Winds And Is This Crow Actually A Raven?

 May 3, 2022

   Fourteen years ago this coming August, Kathy and I flew to Peru to visit our son, Tommy, who was in the Peace Corp. He was stationed in a high mountain village called Yanque. While there I got inspired to take a bunch of photos of the incredible, ancient adobe angles of the buildings, the alleys and the interiors with the intent of doing a series of paintings. Came home, got busy running a magazine and forgot all about it until three days ago when I ran across the reference photos and thought, Hey, these have some potential. 

Daily Whip Outs:

"Peruvian Angles Revisited"

   And, here is a photo Kathy took of me coming out of one of these incredible Peruvian doorways, within a doorway.

Peruvian Doorways

And yes, the wall is that blue!

   Speaking of adobe walls, here's another view of the big, fat crow in the crow's nest:

This just in from my border brother

   "Actually that’s probably a raven. They tend to travel solo or in pairs, crows tend to flock up more
and are seen in groups. Ravens are bigger as well, but who can tell when there’s only one. Around here in Baja Arizona we generally have Chihuahua Ravens. To confirm that one needs a good long look at said bird with good binoculars to get a good look at neck feathers. Here we assume all ravens are Chihuahua birds. They frequent my pond and pasture, often recycle old hawk’s nests."

—Greg Scott

The Winds of Change Are Upon Us

Daily Whip Out: "Dust Storm Troopers"

Daily Whip Out: "The Washoe Zephyr"

   "The 'Washoe Zephyr' (Washoe is a pet nickname for Nevada) is a peculiarly Scriptural wind, in that no man knoweth 'whence it cometh.' That is to say, where it originates. It comes right over the mountains from the West, but when one crosses the ridge he does not find any of it on the other side! It probably is manufactured on the mountaintop for the occasion, and starts from there. It is a pretty regular wind, in the summer-time. Its office-hours are from two in the afternoon till two the next morning; and anybody venturing abroad during those twelve hours needs to allow for the wind or he will bring up a mile or two to leeward of the point he is aiming at. And yet the first complaint a Washoe visitor to San Francisco makes, is that the sea-winds blow so, there! There is a good deal of human nature in that."

—Mark Twain, Roughing It

Daily Whip Out:

"Red Dust Over Blackhawk"

"There was a desert wind blowing that night.  It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch.  On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight.  Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks.  Anything can happen.  You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge."

—Raymond Chandler, Red Wind

September 26, 1948

Official Wallapai Wrist Burns

 May 2, 2022

   In my daily, online quests, I run across some very cool photos. This is one of them.

   That is a smirk for the ages. He seems to be telling us, "Lighten up White Eyes. It's your turn in the barrel."

   Speaking of White Eye pain. . .

The Official Wallapai Wrist Burn

   When I was at the Northern Arizona Little League Championship Games in Flagstaff, Arizona (don't forget Winona), in 1959, I received an official Wallapai Wrist Burn from both Richard and Alex "Nay" Nish and, although I hated it at the time, I am damn proud of it now.

   Essentially a Wallapai Wrist Burn is achieved by grabbing a white guy's wrist with both hands, squeezing hard and at the same time wrenching both hands in the opposite direction, as if you are screwing off a bottle cap and screwing it on at the same time. Enjoy the cries of pain and watching the White Eye flop around on the floor like a fish out of water.

   Repeat until the cows come home. Or, the coach comes in. Or, whatever.

"I hate snow. It's white and it's on my land."

—Old Wallapai Saying

Does The Crow In The Crow's Nest Know It's A Crow's Nest?

 May 1, 2022

Thanks to the architect Perry Nathan Becker, I have a crow's nest upstairs in my art studio and this morning I caught this fat boy rocking it, or, is he mocking it?

A Big, Fat Crow Perched In The Crow's Nest

  I guess my question is, does the crow in the crow's nest know it's a crow's nest? Is he, in fact, crowing about it? Or, does he have nothing to crow about? Kind of amazing how much of our popular slang kowtows to the crow, doesn't it? Hmmmm, or, should that be Caahhhh?

Daily Whip Out: "Juni's Crow"

This artwork will be the cover of her forthcoming second edition of "Girls From Centro."

“Crows are more sincere than they look, you know.”
― Aki