One day while I was painting the Oak Grove Bridge, Trail Guy said he wanted to drive up the Mineral King Road and see how things looked. I put down my brushes and put on my boots.
Field Trip up the Mineral King Road
Because Jimmy Asked
Who is Jimmy? A friend of mine.
What did he ask? Something about William O. Clough and his memorial and Franklin Lake’s dam and the dams built on lakes by the Mt. Whitney Power Co. It wasn’t a specific question, more of a request for more information. He asked me, because Google sent him to my website (probably among several hundred thousand others).
Bill Clough was a colorful guy (an early Trail Guy, perhaps?) who had the job of closing the dams for the winter that Mt. Whitney Power Co. built on four lakes out of Mineral King. Or maybe he opened them. . . I don’t know how this works. (Yes, it still works, but might involve helicopters for transportation these days.)
One fall, Bill didn’t return. The following spring or summer, or maybe even a later spring or summer, someone found his boots near the little cabin he built about halfway between Mineral King and Franklin Lake. Did he live in the cabin? In the summer?
So many questions. . . wish the guy had kept a journal, or a blog or something else helpful.
So many questions, so few answers. Here is a list of what I know:
- The dams out of Mineral King are on Franklin Lake (the lower larger lake), Crystal Lake (upper or lower? It’s been too long since I was there), upper Monarch Lake, and Eagle Lake (only one of those in Mineral King).
- The cave out of the South Fork (of the Kaweah River) Campground of Sequoia National Park is called “Clough’s Cave”. The cave has a gate, so forget about it.
- You can read more about Bill in Mineral King: The Story of Beulah by Louise A. Jackson
- My second mural in Exeter called “Men + Mules + Water = Power” is of Franklin Lake as it looks now, with insets of related historic scenes.
Hope that helps, Jimmy, and thank you for asking so that I could put a Mineral King post up on a Friday in the middle of winter when the ideas are a little sparse.
NEWS FLASH: Bill Clough’s great-grand-niece just left my studio. Uncle Bill closed the dams for the winter. He closed the Franklin dam one fall, then returned to his cabin area, sat down and died. The following spring, my friend’s granddad went looking for him and found his boots and his beard. Uncle Bill was “eccentric”, had a very long beard, and sometimes he preached. (To whom? What? Always more questions around here. . .)
3 Mineral King Paintings in Progress
I’ve been inching along (more accurately, “layering along”) on the 3 largish Mineral King paintings. With colder temperatures, the oil just isn’t drying quickly enough to make much progess.
Here is Farewell Gap with a few more layers.
Here is White Chief with a few more layers:
And here is Sawtooth with a new sky:
Stick a Fork in Me, I’m Done
That’s a non-Google kind of title, but the real title is boring. “Mineral King Mural #3 is Finished in Three Rivers Museum”.
First, a little context. Here is mural #1 as it appears in the Mineral King Room of the Three Rivers Museum (Redundant, I know, but I have to say all those words so this post can be found on the World Wide Web.)
And to our left in the Mineral King Room:
The cabinet in front of mural #3 will be sitting lower once it is removed from the dollies. Yes, those rolling platforms are called “dollies” – anyone know why?? The other sort that guys with their names on a patch on their shirts use to push around boxes of things are called “hand trucks”. (One never knows what sort of helpful tidbit one might pick up on this blog.)
And now for a little glimpse into what sort of fiddling and polishing happens at the end of a mural job – here is how the left side looked last week:
Louise said that the snow patch on the far end looked like white paint. I agreed, and saw that it had the wrong angle on the bottom. Then I added a spot of rocks in the center. She also said that the trees were too sparse, and of course she was right there too.
These are minor details, but those who know, KNOW. Louise KNOWS. I fully trust her judgement, particularly about Mineral King. She has been a tremendous help to me on every Mineral King mural I have ever painted, and I LOVE working with her on any project. (Remember the book Trail of Promises this year? It came out in July, and is available here and on Amazon.)
3rd Mineral King Mural, Day #3
The third Mineral King Mural in the Mineral King Room of the Three Rivers History Museum is almost finished. I estimated 3-4 painting days, and that’s about right.
First I worked on the mountains on the upper right. They were still rough, but it wasn’t apparent until I had detailed the other mountains. The contrast was strong between finished and unfinished mountains, but I didn’t take a close-up photo because I was DETERMINED to finish that day. (In spite of being a conscientious blogger, I do try to live in the moment rather than live to document life.)
I added details to the mountains to the left of the valley, detailed the foreground a bit more, added a foreground tree on the left and one on the right, added texture, snow, contrast, details, details, details. The pencil artist in me wants to take this thing to the nth degree.
Here is the list of what remains to be done on day 4, which hardly counts as a painting day:
- Review all the details and the accuracy with Louise Jackson, author of Trail of Promises, dear friend, coordinator of the Mineral King Room and all-around Mineral King expert.
- Remove blue tape.
- Wash off blue chalk.
- Touch up wall paint where the mural paint bled under the tape.
- SIGN IT!!
- Ride off into the sunset.
Third Mineral King Mural in Three Rivers Museum
“Third Mineral King Mural in Three Rivers Museum” does not sound like a colorful, clever or creative title, but that’s the truth of the matter.
This is mural #1 in the Mineral King Room of the museum.
Here is mural #2.
Finally, here is what you have been waiting for and wondering about: Mural #3!
I think this will be a three day mural. The size is 9 feet by 2 feet. (Bet you can guess which dimension goes with which number. . .)
Third Mineral King Mural in Three Rivers Museum Day 2
Day #2 on the third Mineral King mural in the Mineral King Room of the Three Rivers Museum might be easier to paint than to spell out.
I began on the left, working down and forward in space.
Then, I realized that the farthest mountains were quite unfinished. This meant starting at the top (farthest distance) and painting down.
Sort of. Maybe it would be good to add some more detail in the middle ground. Or a few trees up close.
Or fill up all that white space on the far right. I think it is all forested over there.
What do you mean by “It’s time to close”??? I’m not done, and I thought this was going to be quick and easy.
One of the best ways I know to stay self-employed as a full time artist in Tulare County is to never lose my optimism.
To be continued. . .
New Mineral King Mural Planned
That mural I showed you yesterday served 2 purposes: 1. To dress up the exterior of my studio and 2. To keep me in practice because I felt slightly inadequate to begin the next mural at the Three Rivers History Museum.
This is often how I feel when about to begin a mural. I don’t know how long it takes to confidently approach a wall and just git ‘er dun. I’ve been painting murals for about 9 years now, so one would think I’d have a bit a confidence.
One would be wrong.
The tower/tipi thing was one of many that supported a cable which transported buckets of ore down from the mines to the stamp mill. That is an ore bucket on the floor in front of the mural.
This is the completed cabin facade. The idea is that you are inside a cabin, looking out the window at Sawtooth.
The cabin facade is on the left, the first mural is on the right (out of the view of the camera). Over this display case there will be a panoramic view of the Mineral King area as seen from Mather Point (near Timber Gap). The size will be 2 feet by 9 feet.
I’m not sure when I will begin. First, we must conquer the inexplicable case of nerves. I think it will help to buy new brushes, and to know that there is wall color paint available should I make a total dog’s breakfast of the thing.
“Just fine, thanks, but why are you asking?” says the Central California artist with a tic under her eye and a twitch in her shoulder.
Mineral King in November
It is Friday, and I have some recent Mineral King photos for you. Trail Guy and a friend went up the hill for a day. He is retired, I am not. That’s okay – he provides photos for you who love Mineral King and I post them. We are a team here.
Check out the red tree at the Sweet Ranch.
Now, time for a Samson update. He is still cute, and he is still biting us.
Three Rivers Museum Mural #2, part 2
The new mural in the Mineral King Room of the Three Rivers History Museum took about 5 hours to paint. It is taking 2 days to tell you about it.
I was zipping right along, just slamming this Mineral King mural of Sawtooth out of my brushes like nobody’s business. (Now that’s a quaint phrase – “nobody’s business”? What does this mean?)
Louise stopped by. She is the Mineral King Guru, an accomplished and published author, and a dear friend who has helped me with several of my murals. I said, “Hey Louise, will you look at this while I hold the window in place so we can be sure that I didn’t cover the peak of Sawtooth with the wooden separator of the window?”
Ahem. Houston, we have a problem.
So, I moved the peak of Sawtooth to the left. Seeing double? Yeppers. Two Sawtooths. Wait. Should that be “Sawteeth”?
No problemo. (a little Spanish lingo for you to balance the French lesson yesterday) Let’s fix the sky, shorten the right side of Sawtooth and add some yellow so the whole world isn’t green, gray and blue. (“Let us” – “us” is the royal we. Thank you for your participation – I appreciation the help and enthusiasm.)
In fact, let’s add a tree. Trees are good. This looks green, but it really is red fir.
Museum Man Tom wedged the window into place so we could be sure of everything. I think you need to see this in person to fully appreciate its coolness. The glass makes some obnoxious reflections in the photograph. The camera’s flash washes out the colors too, but I couldn’t hold still enough without it.
In spite of the difficulties, you can see the peak of Sawtooth, and there is a sense that you are looking out of the window because of the space between the window and the mural.
Now, no plastic and no window. It was a little weird to paint with such sloppy edges, but the window frame will cover the roughness.
The apparent darkness at the top of the sky with that stalactite is the shadow from the roof and rafter tail of the “cabin”. The lighter circle in the sky is a mystery, probably related to the way Museum Man Tom moved lights so I could see what I was painting.
Now have a look at the “cabin”. You’ll have to stay tuned or stop by the museum after the window is put in place and secured. I didn’t dare put it in and risk cracking another pane of glass. (No, I didn’t crack the first pane. For once, I wasn’t the Breaker, although I continue to be a loser in the true sense of the word.)
