Monday, August 19, 2019

Bringing It All Back Home


Bringing It All Back Home



It has been several months since I last made a trip to the storage locker. Traffic was light on Lambert Road, and I hit almost all green lights on the drive. I had two cartons in the truck, archives 9 & 10 in one box, and archives 12 & 13 in the other. I had to leave archive 11 at the house, but by the end of the morning that turned out to be a good thing. Small coincidences continue to weave their way through this endeavor.




I brought home the last collection, which totaled 20 paintings, some of them framed. I also brought back the boxes of bagged up xerox copies of notes, letters, and stuff that I can describe only as ‘Pete’s last mad ravings’.
So last Monday night I set up the lights, pulled the shades in the den, and got the last of Pete Hampton’s work photographed.  



 The total count comes to eight hundred twenty eight paintings, drawings, and sketches. All that remains of this part of the project is the catalogue entries. I’ll have that done this week.
And then?
We shall see.
I’ve recorded everything that Pete had stored away in his private collections. I’ve spent a lot of time reading his notebooks, his inscriptions, his notes. I’ve seen a lot of stuff that in all probability no one else has seen. And I’ve spent the last year searching the deep archives of my own life, recalling incidents, events, stories.



The trip down Memory Lane is fun for only the first couple of blocks. Stay on that street long enough and you get to the bad neighborhoods where your every cringe inducing recollection is a pothole in an unpaved alley. I do believe I’ve revisited my every embarrassing moment from 1968 to about 1980. I didn’t see this coming.
I tend toward tunnel vision in my work. I lock in on task, and don’t allow myself to get sidetracked. I’ve been so focused on the process of getting these digital archives together that small details of significance slip out from under my notice.

 Old B36, 1947 on a summer day



 Like the dates on Pete’s paintings, for example. Of course, I have recorded the dates on the pictures that are dated, but Pete didn’t often put dates on his work.
The dates on most of Pete’s completed paintings run from the early 60’s to somewhere around 1983 or 84. And this roughly coincides with the years in which I, and my other friends kept regular contact with Pete. It was for us, a time of growing out of adolescence and into adulthood. Pete was closing in on 40, and edging into middle-age. He belonged to a world we were reluctantly outgrowing.  Like when we were grade school kids, helping Pete promote his “Lost Canyon Trip” show. Eventually saving the hills slid off the list of critical stuff to worry about. Our lives became centered around jobs, and the day-today business of life. It became easier and easier to say, “Hey we haven’t seen Pete in a while, gotta’ give him a call.” But not just now...

Not just now…

We’ll have some more from the 14th archive next week, and perhaps I’ll post pics of the paintings in my private collection. I did not expect to be done with this phase so soon, and to be honest, I do not know what will come next. Just like when I was getting started, I am in unexplored territory. Still, I have the conviction that there is a greater hand guiding this endeavor toward a purpose I can not yet see.  Do the footwork. Say your prayers. Leave the results to God. and so we continue.

next week: All that's Fit to Print>

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