Where We've Been, and Where We're Going

Where We've Been, and Where We're Going

For those few who have been following the blog, and for those who may be joining us here for the first time, I’d like to take a step back, review what it is I’m doing here, and take a look at where this project is going.

Pete Hampton (1940-2018) was my friend. He was an eccentric, some would say, “mad” artist, and showman from La Habra California. His paintings of the Puente Hills in Whittier, and La Habra, are sublimely beautiful, his stories and shows, strange and often frightening.

I met Pete when I was 11 years old. He was part of my circle of friends through much of my life. I had lost contact with Pete, and that entire circle of friends for many years, but a series of wildly unlikely coincidences prompted me to try to find him back in 2017. He was in his last year of life, sick, broken and alone.

When he passed away in July of 2018, his brother Richard came out to California to settle his affairs.

By the end of that week I found myself with Pete’s entire collection of paintings, drawings, slides, and writings sitting in my den.

I have, over the last year, completed the first task for the Hampton family, which was photographing and cataloguing the entire collection, nearly 900 pieces.

We are now beginning the second phase of The Lost Canyon Project: bringing this work to the world, so to speak. This blog is the first step in the effort. I have long been of the opinion that Pete Hampton deserves a place among the great American painters. Others are seeing this as well.

But  how does one go about such a task? That’s the question. My wife and I have many contacts in the local art community. We’re putting out inquiries, showing the catalog to those who have responded.  We’ve had encouraging feedback, and some excellent advice from some very knowledgeable folks. Too, the uncanny web of coincidence that has guided this project continues to unfold. I guess, now, it’s a matter of persistence. We’ll knock on doors until the right one opens.

Next. Some New Stuff Some Old Stuff >

Onward

Onward

<last week: Going Postal

Well, I can admit to being wrong when I am wrong, and it turns out that there are, indeed, postal workers who do give a damn. (See how I've tempered that complaint from last week?)

 I did finally locate someone from the Post Office who could tell me how to resolve the lost package bummer. (Notice, too, how the whole affair has been downgraded from crisis to bummer.) 

 I talked to the gal who delivers the mail on our route. She took the time to hear out the whole story. She identified the computer generated trap that held the package in limbo, and told me how to get it sprung. Kudos. The Hamptons got the catalog.

And, for now, The Lost Canyon Project enters a new phase. Those who have been following the blog will perhaps remember The Deep Dark Hole story. I posted The Deep Dark Hole at the end of last December, but I have taken the rough draft off line for refinement. It is a segment from Pete’s never completed work, “The Lost Era” which told the story of his early childhood in La Habra Heights, back in the 1940’s.

 Dreams were always profoundly important to Pete Hampton. He spoke often of having astonishingly vivid, even prophetic dreams. The Deep Dark Hole is the richly illustrated account of a lucid dream.

The Deep Dark Hole was a childhood nightmare so profound that Pete recorded it in a sequence of nearly a hundred paintings.

 Later notes and paintings indicated that Pete was considering taking the dream sequence, and making it into a show of its own. Some months ago I transcribed the hand written text of the nightmare story and posted it here along with some of the pictures. As I progressed through the fourteen archives of paintings I found  over a dozen more illustrations that belonged to the dream sequence. 

The next project is re-assembling the sequence of paintings, refining that rough draft, and putting the polished final product into storybook form.

And from there? Many other irons in the fire. We’ll see what is to come. Thanks for stopping by.

Going Postal

Going Postal

 

 

From its inception The Lost Canyon Project has been shot through with a strange fate driven metaphysic. The whole event has been spun out in a web of just- so encounters, and unlikely coincidences, and eerie good luck in completing the task. Something lit the creative burn in me, and I followed it through by organizing and archiving the nearly 900 paintings and drawings from Pete's estate. I created the Lost Canyon Archives Word file, and .jpg files. I  got ready to print a  nearly 500 page catalog of Pete’s artwork.

Somehow the energy began to fizzle when I took the SD card to the printer. First from an oversight on my part, and later from an oversight on the printer’s part it took much longer than anticipated, and we ended up with three unusable copies of the book.

But we overcame that obstacle.

 August 30 I mailed the completed document to Pete’s brother Richard in South Carolina. This, in a weird way, felt like Christmas in reverse. I was proud of the work and I was really looking forward to hearing from Rick and Geri once they opened up that box, and got a look at it.

It still hasn’t happened.

The catalog should have taken three days to get there. But Hurricane Dorian delayed things. With service back to normal I followed the package tracking on line. After being sent to North Carolina, and then Washington DC, it was sent to the distribution facility in Richmond, Virginia. All good. But from there it was sent to Charlottesville, Virginia. Charlottesville returned it to Richmond, who sent it back to Charlottesville, who sent it back to Richmond.  So I double check the receipt. The clerk entered the wrong zip code; it was off by one digit. 

So now what? Try finding a phone number to call. Not easy. The 800 line is busy is busy is busy but if you get through there is a wait of two hours. So go on line. Try to find the forms. Not easy. Fill out forms, and submit them. This is not Amazon. It isn’t a user-friendly experience. Hit submit, and nothing. 24 hrs. later I get an auto-notice that my request is in the computer. Two- three days later, and nothing. Package is still in transit between Richmond and Charlottesville. And back. I submit a second request through their crappy on-line system.
Nothing.

Well, maybe try and find someone at the post office who will know what to do and how to do it. Fat goddamn chance. Might as well go hunt for Bigfoot in Area 51.  I took the receipt, and the correct information to the local PO where I mailed it. Same crabby ass clerk who took the package last week is at the same window. I start to explain what has happened. Rude bitch doesn’t even listen. “Go uptown. I can’t do anything.” That's all she said. End of story.
I'm getting angry.

So, I drove uptown to the main PO, and parked in the lot, and waited in a long line. The clerk there didn’t speak much English, but she couldn’t help either. "You wai wahl I geh managah."

 A few minutes later Managah appears. I show him the receipt, explain what has happened. Give him the tracking number, the Address, and the correct zip code. He takes all the information and disappears for ten or fifteen minutes. The guy returns, and I’m thinking I can get on with my day and have done with this. Wrong. He hands me my stuff back along with a piece of paper with a phone number written in ballpoint. “Call these guys" he says. "It’s the Charlottesville post office.”

 Apparently making telephone calls was not part of his his job.

By now I’m really angry. I get home and call the number (Note that I am, indeed calling during east coast business hours). It rings!  Five, ten, fifteen times, it rings. Finally I got a recording saying that this number does not take phone messages. Click. I tried it three times more. No answer.

The Hamptons filed a missing package report, but the package isn’t showing up as missing because it is recorded as being in transit between Charlottesville, and Richmond. I cannot file an insurance claim for the same reason.
In the mean time I got two automated survey emails from the United States Post Office asking for my feedback on how they did with the service requests that I submitted. My feedback, it seems, is valuable, so they can continue to provide good service.

I have not been able to get assistance from one damned employee. Not one. Nobody gives a shit, and nobody will lift a godamn finger or take a step out of the way to do anything. After all, it's in the system. And as I type this morning, the package is still, 17 days later, being shuttled back and forth between Richmond and Charlottesville. In transit.

And so.

So.

I emerge from this spiritually charged, and intricately woven flow of events, encounters, challenges, inspirations and tasks, only to get dumped into a Kafkaesque trap of  stupidity, laziness, and human error magnified  to hellish proportions by automation and computers.

And I have gone from angry to very angry to totally pissed off to 'wake up in the middle of the night pissed off, and wanting to wring someone's goddamn neck'.
And I can not get any assistance with this crap at all.
NONE.

Post office don't give a shit. 
Let's hope for better news by next week. 

Next: Onward>