Monsters in the Dark

Monsters in the Dark

<Last Week:The Long Night

 

 

Once again, I had a week dominated by a domestic project which involved shovels, dirt, hundreds of concrete curbstones, and pavers, and nothing that remotely resembled either assistance, or fun. But I did complete the clerical stuff on archive 13. The catalogue is up to date with 808 entries at 500 pages even. 

And just to set my obsessive compulsive teeth on edge, the last two packing boxes will fit archives 9 and 10, and archives 12 and 13 perfectly , but there is no way I can fit archive 11 in a box and have room for anything else.

 So that means that tomorrow, when I go down to the storage I have to leave archive 11 here and come home with a box for it so I can take it back later.  I wanted to take all the completed work to the storage in order, and in one trip. But I’m just getting silly over pointless details. Welcome to The Lost Canyon Project.

With this archive, all of the collected works from Pete Hampton’s shows and stories are recorded. I took great care to catalogue the paintings in the order that Pete stored them, but it soon became apparent that many of the sequences were scattered over several collections. There is material for “The Deep Dark Hole” in archive 11. The Pigrat sequence for today’s post was likewise scattered across several collections. Similarly, Jeff’s encounter with the old lady in Rideout Heights is spread out in several archives. As I mentioned, I’ll be going to the storage Monday morning. By next week we should have pictures from the last collection of large assorted works.

A visit to Pete’s hut in the Lost Canyon was more than an overnight camp-out, and all night bull session with your best pal.  The Whittier Hills was a world of  pristine beauty in the day, and the realm of monsters and nightmares after dark. In previous posts we’ve seen visits from the mangled corpse of Joseph the oilman, in “The Terrible Thing”. We've seen the attack of the Monster from “The Midnight Terror.” We’ve seen the Telehonepolies, strange hostile birds from “The Lost Era”, and had an encounter with Green Mist that left a man hanging headless from a tree.

But somehow, the Pigrat from “The Lost Canyon Trip” was Pete’s favorite mythical creature. When Pete talked about his show, he seldom failed to mention the frightening and fatal encounter with this unheard-of animal.

Part of the reason for the overnight camp-out in “The Lost Canyon Trip”,   was that Pete wanted to trap a California Thrasher. How does one trap a bird? Easy. Box. Bait. Stick. String. Just like in The Roadrunner. Only it really can work. (Pete did trap his bird.) But back to the camp-out.

 Something late at night is raiding the bird trap.

 Whatever it is, it's big!

 Staring Pigrat/ as big as a cocker spaniel/ climax shot/ #10

“Pig-rat/ It collapsed, It’s dead, Jeff, died of fright! Probably never saw a person before. I wonder??/shot # 14”

 

  

Why not, indeed? And then there was the even more mysterious White Pigrat:

Strange white Pig-Rat in oilwell hills / Strange white pig-rat like animal disappearing off a lonely road in the oilwell hills/ $15.

Next week: Bringing It All Back Home>

The Long Night

The Long Night

<last week: A Greater Hand

 

 

 

 

Last week I was bemoaning a small clerical error that generated a  week-long setback in the project. It took some time, but I got it all taken care of. Archive 12 is in the books.

Wednesday I set up for a long photo session, and opened the black plastic bag containing the last box of paintings and illustrations from Pete Hampton’s epic multi-media slide show, “The Lost Canyon Trip”. Sometime after midnight I snapped the last photo, and carefully returned the stack of 85 paintings and illustrations to the box  that Pete packed them in. The photography, and digital gallery for archive 13 is finished. I’m working my way through the catalogue entries, but that’s just mouse-work.

As if to add a melodramatic  strand to the strange web of coincidence that has enmeshed The Lost Canyon Project, this last collection is entitled “The Long Night”. Sometime this week I’ll return this stuff to the storage unit, and bring home the last collection of paintings for photography.

 It is late Friday night, the second of August, 2019, as I sit here at the keyboard. The events the introductory post, “A Scattering of Ashes” took place last year, August 19, 2018.

 Last August I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material to record. A year and a half to two years, that’s how long I figured it would take  to catalogue all Pete’s work. I overestimated a little.

And now it’s mostly done.  I can easily finish it all before the one-year mark.  Is it important that I do so? Not really. There is no deadline. But I know myself well enough  to know what’s going to happen. I can feel the burn coming on.
Sort of like driving home from a long road trip, or getting close to the end of any major undertaking. It’s always a temptation to cram the last two travel days into one horrendous marathon drive, or to get a project finished in an all-night work and coffee binge. I’ve done both.

It’s a good bet that I’ll get locked into project mode, and turn August 19 into a deadline. We’ll see. But for now, let’s take a look at some more scenes from “The Lost Canyon Trip”.

 

These last two archives are full of pictures of Pete and his friend Jeff in the hut at night. A great part of the Lost Canyon Trip  consisted of conversations between the two boys.

 Looking at these illustrations, and the inscriptions on the pictures  opened a window into stuff that I hadn’t thought of for a very long time. 

Not only have I overlooked this element of the show, I had forgotten the back yard camp-outs I had with my friends when we were in our early teens. We pitched tents, and brought sleeping bags but no one slept.

 We were young, and we had all of life and the world before us. Like in the song, “Bob Dylan’s Dream”, we talked all night, and discussed anything and everything we thought we knew about life,  and all things under heaven. It was good.

 Imagine one such camp-out. Only not in a tent in your pal’s back yard. In 1958 there was wilderness within a mile of Whittier City Hall. This camp-out meant sneaking over the fence at in the dark, hiking way up above town, and climbing deep down  into the canyons to spend the night at your best friend’s secret hut.   There’s a little Tom Sawyer in all of us. These illustrations are a mirror on that age and time.

In these next few posts we'll continue with material from archives 12 and 13. As we explore the last archives of “Lost Canyon Trip” illustrations I’ll try to fill in the gaps, and tie together the loose strands in Pete’s story as best I can.

We’ll  soon have a look at the last collection of paintings from Pete Hampton’s estate. There is some magnificent stuff coming here at The Lost Canyon Project. Stay tuned.

 

As a final note, I just remembered that I DID make a promise of Pigrats in this week's post, and I like to keep my word on stuff. But the Pigrat is kind of a long story, and I'm going to have to save it for next week. In the meantime, here's The Pigrat... 

Next: Monsters in the Dark>