More Strands in the web

<previous: Closing the Circle

More Strands in the Web

We’ll be opening another archive soon. As that work gets under way I’d like to go back to the theme of coincidence, or synchronicity, if you prefer. We’ll see some new paintings as well, these from my private collection. Also,  Pete’s brother, Richard, sent me a couple of old photos of Pete, so we’ll finally get a look at the man who created all this strange and wonderful stuff.

 Power Pole and Crows. paper, 1963

This small painting has always been one of my most prized. I nagged Pete about selling it to me for a long time before he finally let it go.

Looking east toward the Nike site in Brea

Notice the scratch in the picture, just to the right of the sumac leaf. In '85 I was moving into a new apartment. I was driving the loaded pickup down the freeway, when I hit a huge bump in the road. The box containing my whole collection of Pete's paintings bounced out of the truck bed, and landed in the center lane. Somehow I managed to get over to the right, get off the freeway, get back on the freeway going in the opposite direction, get off, and then get back on again. I could see the box was intact in middle of the freeway. I pulled into the center divider, ran out, rescued the box, and made it back to the truck. No glass was broken. A couple of the pictures suffered some minor scratches. That's how the one to the right of the sumac leaf got there.

How many coincidences in a series does it take, before one begins to suspect that there is some Greater Hand nudging things along?  It isn’t really my job here to engage in metaphysical speculation, but this project seems to be guided, by some strange  magnetism that pulls one event into synch with another. It's like following a ley line. It seems like every time I turn around I encounter another ‘just-so’ occurrence.  I like to think in terms of Guardian Angels, but that’s just me.

So let’s take a look at a handful of these events.

  

Coincidence the First: Mike Doyle and the Painting of  the Green Glass Insulator.  

I mentioned in my third post that Pete, from very early childhood, was fascinated by telephone pole and powerline insulators. He began collecting before he was ten. He had a collection of well over a thousand old insulators.

Collectors Mike Doyle, and Lou Hall made a five hour plus drive down to Whittier, and spent Memorial Day weekend taking inventory, and appraising the collection for the Hampton family. Seldom have I met a couple of guys who so quickly seemed like my old friends. They spent a full day with the boxes in my garage, and another with the stuff in the storage shed.  Even then, they didn’t get to all of it. Lou had to return a week later to haul off the final load. It was a big job, but a fascinating one. Mike knew Pete from the insulator shows.

Those who have been following the blog may recall this comment.

 Mike Doyle writes:

 I only knew Pete for a short time in the scheme of things but I knew when we met that we would be friends. He was an amazing soul, a tireless, enigmatic character who always seemed positive and energized. He had the ability to take a conversation in three directions at the same time and to keep them all on track. I enjoyed engaging with him and I always felt exhausted afterward because of the high level of energy that I had to expend to keep up my end of the conversation. We often shared ideas at shows and he called me on the phone quite a few times. We never spoke for less than an hour when he'd call and Pete seemed to take our conversations very seriously.

Over the two or three years during which we communicated most frequently, Pete sent me a significant volume of original artwork and correspondence. John, you now have most (if not all) of that back. I saved it for some reason. I'm not a sentimental guy and I'm not a pack rat but I saved it. I can't tell you why. I believe that much of it will be important to the structure or underpinning of the blog insofar as it helps to explain Pete's unique 'micro-obsessions' within his greater hobby interests.  (emphasis mine)

The picture that you posted shows what appears to be a 'Browns Pony' style glass insulator laying in the weeds, perhaps at the foot of a pole. This particular style was certainly one of Pete's favorites. He also loved 'Monkey Face' and 'Johnny Ball' style strain insulators.

Mike sent me an absolutely wonderful collection of correspondence, and pictures from Pete.

 As I wrote in an earlier post, we had only two days to clear out Pete’s apartment. So I had boxes, and piles of paintings, tapes, and slides, along with immense amounts of just plain junk, and folder, after folder, after folder, of xerox copies of his ravings, magazine and newspaper clippings, science articles about weather, and geology, sketches, and anything anywhere that caught his interest.  We piled and crammed this stuff into my garage, living room, and den.

In the den, next to the computer, piled on the printer that I never use, were three or four 9 x 12” stationery boxes full of miscellaneous envelopes, papers and pictures. The insulator painting was kind of floating around in the chaos, and it landed right at the top of the top box. It was the last item I photographed for the first archive. Right under the little painting was the envelope of material that Mike sent me. I will confess that when I first posted the picture I had given only a cursory look at the stuff in the envelope.

So I began my third post with the suggestion that Mike Doyle could possibly identify the insulator. Weeks later, when I looked more closely through the material that Mike had sent I found this:

and this:

Yes, That is Pete Hampton, age 6, with his home-made telephone pole.

And sitting right under the envelope from Mike was another manila envelope of old family photos containing this:

The original photograph from 1947.

and this:

 

Here are some photos of Pete from back in the 70's.

 

They were good years. There is another story connected with this picture, but that one is for later...

next. New Year's With Yoshio>