Search Results

Charles Samuel LaMonk (1910-1990) was a beloved local artist known for his sensitive renditions of American and Central Mexican Natives. LaMonk was also known for his landscapes which included caves and canyons, along with traditional Native American rock art. LaMonk graduated from the art department at Los Angeles Trade Tech and studied privately with Will Foster and at the Chouinard Art Institute. Finding inspiration in local archaeology, LaMonk moved to the valley in 1955. While living in Palmdale, LaMonk ran an Artist’s Gallery where he would often lecture on the basis and motivation of his work's subject matter while painting. He once stated the overall purpose of his artwork was to, "capture on canvas the haunting emotion of the Indian people whose every ounce of strength [was] consumed in daily survival." By using eroded sand and rock applied over a white base, LaMonk was able to produce realistic depictions of ancient petroglyphs. The pictographs, however, were painted on a simple base using frayed deer-hide on a stick. Through experimentation, LaMonk was able to find a way that allowed him to produce the strokes and dots of the ancient rock artists. Here at Lancaster MOAH, we have an extensive collection of LaMonk's work; although most of his paintings are housed within our permanent collection, there are three on display at the Elyze Clifford Interpretive Center, located within the Prime Desert Woodland Preserve. "Gurba, Norma H. Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley. Arcadia, 2013. Photo courtesy of MOAH Collections"

Chief Juan Lozada (1859 – 1944) was a man highly respected among the local Rancho Tejon Native Americans. He was considered a highly skilled vaquero, or cowboy, and worked on the ranch for around 65 years. Although he was not born or elected as a chief, he was treated as such by the local Native Americans due to the relationship they had with each other. While some people who knew Lozada claimed that he knew how to speak English, it is said that after being swindled by merchants, he refused to speak it again. The image here is a portrait of Chief Lozada by local artist Charles LaMonk. For more information regarding Charles LaMonk, stay tuned for our next post (Tuesday, 10/2)! "Gurba, Norma H. Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley. Arcadia, 2013. Photo courtesy of MOAH Collections"

Lydia Weld (1878 – 1962) was the first woman to receive a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s engineering school in naval architecture and marine engineering in 1903. After graduation, she went on to work as a draftsman in the Newport News Dry Dock and Ship Building Company, finalizing plans of all machinery that would be installed on naval ships. She stayed there until health problems forced her to retire during World War I. After her retirement from the Newport News Dry Dock and Ship Building Company, she moved to the Antelope Valley to stay at and tend to her brother’s ranch on Avenue H and 90th Street West. To prepare herself for this, she took classes at the University of California, Davis, to learn the fundamental skills of California ranching. From 1915 to 1933, the Weld ranch was known for its high-quality alfalfa, pears, sheep, poultry, and hogs. Due to their success, it was known as an oasis within the desert. Lydia was also highly engaged in the local community, serving as the first female board trustee, and later president, of the Antelope Valley Joint Union High School District in 1923. She also worked hard to improve the local grammar schools. In addition to her involvement with the local school district, Weld became director of the Los Angeles County Farm Bureau and president of the Lancaster Woman’s Club. She also spent some of her free time writing scientific articles concerning the Antelope Valley’s various birds, helping her neighbors, and rescuing stray lambs. "Gurba, Norma H. Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley. Arcadia, 2013. Photo courtesy of MOAH Collections"

William Keller (1908 – 1968), a graduate of the local Antelope Valley High School, became California’s youngest justice for the peace in 1934. He served as the Antelope Valley’s justice of the peace from 1934 to 1956. He was well-liked among the community, with friends saying “Keller was a very good judge; everyone liked him but the felons.” Keller was also actively involved with the Red Cross and the Civil Defense. He was well-known for his speechmaking and public speaking and often served as master of ceremonies for important events. Keller (center) is shown here with his coworkers from the court. "Gurba, Norma H. Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley. Arcadia, 2013. Photo courtesy of MOAH Collections"

Amelia Smead (1833 – 1920) graduated from Mount Holyoke College and, in the 1870s, became the first woman elected to the Boston School Board of Education. She then moved to Los Angeles, involving herself with local charities. She was also involved in the women’s suffrage movement and several women’s organizations and the Children’s Hospital. During the 1890s, she spent vast amounts of time and energy in developing the old Manzana Colony. This was an agricultural enterprise spanning over 2,200-acres in the western end of the Antelope Valley. The Manzana Colony is pictured here with an unidentified man. "Gurba, Norma H. Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley. Arcadia, 2013. Photo courtesy of MOAH Collections"

Charles Warren Townsend (1873 – 1953), known most commonly by his nickname “Cy”, was a former professional baseball player, having played with the Syracuse Club in the New York State League as well as Sacramento in the California Coast League. Later, he also played in Bakersfield for the Imperial League and became a lifetime member of the National Baseball Association. Cy moved to Mojave in 1914 after he retired from professional baseball. While living in Mojave, Cy continued to work and ran the French Café, the Mojave Meat Market, and several service stations. He also invested $500 into the Golden Queen Mine, receiving a 10% interest. In 1921, he was elected as Mojave’s justice of the peace, serving until 1929. "Gurba, Norma H. Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley. Arcadia, 2013. Photo courtesy of MOAH Collections"

While nearly all early Antelope Valley railroad telegraph operators were male, Mamie O’Toole began working at the Mojave railroad depot around 1899. She essentially paved the way for other local female telegraph operators, such as Mary Rayburn of Rosamond and Mrs. Mair of Palmdale. While it is not known what her male counterparts thought of her work, the townspeople referred to her as a “crack telegrapher” for her fast and accurate work. O’Toole is pictured here, c. 1900, with her fellow male coworkers at the Mojave railroad depot. "Gurba, Norma H. Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley. Arcadia, 2013. Photo courtesy of MOAH Collections"

Environmental artist Cristopher Cichocki stands near the Anza Ditch in Salton City, Calif. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) When Cristopher Cichocki was a kid in Sturgeon Bay, Wis., he’d brave minus 70 degree wind-chill temperatures to explore nearby forests for natural material like sticks and leaves so he could make things out of them. When he moved to Southern California's Palm Desert at age 10, he found himself doing the same — only with plants that thrived in temperatures nearly 200 degrees hotter. For Cichocki, there were striking similarities between underwater life and the curious flora that continues to occupy the yawning swath of seemingly barren California desert. Cichocki's observation evolved into an investigation that formed the basis of his art practice, bringing him from the receding shorelines of the Salton Sea in his own backyard to Lancaster’s Museum of Art and History (MOAH), where the artist's latest solo show, "Divisions of Land and Sea," serves as a culmination of his exploration into the connectedness between earth and water. After studying at CalArts and living in Los Angeles, Cichocki moved back to the desert in 2005. He currently resides in the Coachella Valley, where he often makes art out of found materials like old irrigation hosing, which he discovered at an abandoned citrus orchard in Indio Hills. That hosing appears at the museum as part of an evolving installation called “Sea Change (2016-2018).” The tumbleweed-like mass is perched atop a glittering wood-composite foundation. It is connected with a piping conduit to a living aloe vera plant, which is covered with marking paint and surrounded by sea salt, nestled in a found oil canister atop a palm stump. The work of art is meant to reference what Cichocki describes as "the surviving seeds of an ancient ocean," but the gnarled ball of irrigation hosing at the center could just as easily be symbolic of the snarled bureaucratic mess surrounding the Salton Sea itself, whose future remains as murky as its shrinking water supply. The Salton Sea was created in 1905 when water from the Colorado River flowed into a dry lake bed for two years following the breach of an irrigation canal. About a century later, the Salton Sea is shrinking. In 2003, California lawmakers implemented a 15-year plan to address the environmental concerns caused by the Salton Sea drying up. As the deadline passed, locals realized that more water was diverted from the lake’s source, the Colorado River, to surrounding communities, leaving the shores of the Salton Sea to recede further. It still is a public health hazard as toxic dust kicks up and asthma rates in Imperial County rise. But the water in the Salton basin has been flooding and drying up repeatedly over the course of millennia, ever since the Cahuilla Native Americans first settled in the area roughly 10,000 years ago. In the 19th century alone, the Colorado River flooded the basin at least half a dozen times. It only threatened to become a problem in 1928, when Congress designated part of the Salton basin as a repository for agricultural wastewater. "The issue with the Salton Sea is really the particulate matter that's coming from it, because it's surrounded by so much agriculture,” Cichocki explains. “When you have particulate matter, it's not just the sand that's blowing in the lot next door to you. It's literally going into your bloodstream and it's altering your DNA. It's inescapable from your body at that point.” Installation photo, "Divisions of Land and Sea' by Cristopher Cichocki. (Lance Gerber Studio) A multimedia artwork as part of Cristopher Cichocki's "San Andreas" series (Cristopher Cichocki) Cichocki addressed his grim realization in a piece on display at MOAH called “Reservoir Issue.” In a heavy steel case, he placed 25 unopened cans of Cold War-era, government-issue emergency drinking water, a reference to what Cichocki says is “the privatization of material that is potentially everybody’s.” Next, he stratified layers of organic farming soil, synthetic sand, sea salt and barnacles from the Salton Sea, then incrementally poured a gallon of water through the whole piece, essentially creating an evolving installation that’s producing increasing amounts of salty, rust-like corrosion that continues to drip below. “With the Salton Sea, you have about a hundred years of agricultural runoff like arsenic and selenium,” Cichocki says. “All these pesticides can store within barnacles [and] are filtered through,” just like the water making its way through “Reservoir Issue.” The application of water was risky for the artist, however. “I had no idea how that water was going to take, if it was going to be sealed,” Cichocki explains. “I knew it would probably drip. I kind of guessed that. But we're talking a big roll of the dice.” "Reservoir Issue," part of "Divisions of Land and Sea" by Cristopher Cichocki. (Lance Gerber Studio) "Liquid Division” by Cristopher Cichocki (Cristopher Cichocki) Throughout his practice, Cichocki has created multimedia pieces that not only address the cyclical aspects of nature, but especially the way humans have altered and affected Earth's natural cycle through wide-scale development of manufacturing, production, construction and in this particular case, art. But Cichocki's interests extend far beyond the terrestrial. He's especially intrigued by the idea that what's going on here on Earth may be a reflection of what is happening in the universe. "Are we looking through the microscope or are we looking through the telescope, or are these things simultaneous?" he asks. One project, “Circular Dimensions,” is a completely immersive experience that includes sound art, video and even microscopic video painting, with scientists and artists manipulating material under a microscope, which is projected live onto circular panels. Installation photo, "Divisions of Land and Sea" by Cristopher Cichocki. (Lance Gerber Studio) The Salton Sea has long been an inspiration to Southern California artists, despite its perilous future. Communities of outsider artists have made site-specific installations throughout the region, creating a homegrown art scene. Nearby Salvation Mountain is a popular tourist spot, and Slab City’s post-apocalyptic town East Jesus is home to the Imperial Valley’s only official museum. What was once a quirky response to institutionalized art fairs, the Bombay Beach Biennale is starting to gain some legitimate attention. The environment around the Salton Sea itself serves both as an open studio and gallery. For Cichocki, however, art inspired by the Salton Sea is more conceptual, which is why it seems to fit so neatly in a gallery setting. “I like to think of these as excavations, in a sense, and composing outside of the gestural kind of ego,” he explains. “I’m not interested in blending or making these idiosyncratic marks. I'm interested in industrial applications.” Nonetheless, the artist describes himself as very much “site responsive” and says everything in the Lancaster museum is there for a reason. “I don't think there are any arbitrary decisions, but still, there's a lot of experimentation,” just like “Reservoir Issue,” for instance. Cichocki also founded a residency for artists called Epicenter Projects, which began with a series of site-specific artworks adjacent to the San Andreas fault. Acting as a curator allowed Cichocki to investigate similar themes in his own paintings, such as the "San Andreas Series” and "Elemental Surfaces," which examine impending disasters, natural and man-made. His oeuvre reflects and references a range of interests that requires an equally wide range of media to articulate. It’s something Cichocki does expertly and effortlessly — or at least, that's how he makes it seem. At its core, "Divisions of Land and Sea” is about the effect industry has on the natural world. It’s also a meditation and examination of water itself, as well as a subtle critique of institutional division between private and public property, symbolized in another motif running through the exhibit: red flagging tape. ”I find it such a funny thing. It's such an official kind of material, right? But it's so flimsy and so kind of ephemeral at the same time,” Cichocki observes. But not only does the red tape signify division, it’s also symbolic of the proverbial red tape created by the government: a sobering reminder that, while the Salton basin may have dried up repeatedly over centuries, this is the first time it’s the result of human intervention. And this time, it’s the humans who are suffering. Detail, "Salton Sea Chrome Fish" by Cristopher Cichocki. (Lance Gerber Studio) Read more: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/museums/la-et-cm-cristopher-cichocki-20180910-story.html

Max Harold Carol (1891 – 1970) left Poland in 1913, fleeing to America to evade a compulsory 25-year service in the Russian military. He first stayed in San Francisco, working as a salesman at the Emporium. In 1936 he made his way down to Mojave and opened a clothing store under the Alton-Kingston Hotel. With the timing of his store’s opening coinciding with the Great Depression, a majority of his customers were gold miners and railroad workers. Even then, miners and railroad workers did not make much money. Due to the constraints of people’s finances at the time, Carol experienced stints of slow business. Despite this, his store became known for providing the best merchandise around and was often called “the friendliest store in the desert”. Carol’s son, Cyril, continued to operate the family business as a Western-wear shop from 1954 until 1995. In addition to running this business, Carol was also a prominent community leader. He helped organize the Mojave Chamber of Commerce and acted as the first president of the Mojave Businessmen’s Association. He is also credited with starting the American Legion Club and the Lions Club, while also supporting the local Boy Scouts and Little Leagues. He played an integral part in several of the Mojave Gold Rush Days celebrations, as well. Carol was a Jewish veteran of World War I, and as such, was an advocate for veteran’s rights and a strong supporter of several veterans’ organizations. Both his sisters, Bronia and Esther, were unfortunately killed in the German concentration camps during World War II. His involvement in war efforts during the Second World War was expressed through him opening up his shop as the headquarters of the draft board, which lasted until the Vietnam War. "Gurba, Norma H. Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley. Arcadia, 2013. Photo courtesy of MOAH Collections"

The Del Valle family is known as being one of the wealthiest, oldest, and most respected families in Southern California. In 1839, Antonio Del Valle was granted the 48,000-acre Rancho San Francisco-Francisquito. After his death, his son Don Ygnacio Del Valle, who was serving as the alcalde (mayor) of Los Angeles, became the owner of the ranch. Gold was discovered on the ranch in 1842 by Francisco “Cuso” Lopez. In 1843, the California government granted the Antelope Valley Rancho Tejon to Ygnacio for his extensive military service under Gov. Jose Figueroa. The Del Valle family was also affiliated with the well-known Rancho Camulos adobe near Piru and Fillmore, as it was originally part of the Rancho San Francisco. In 1896, Ygnacio’s daughter Ysabel “Belle” Del Valle (1868 – 1936) married Charles H. Cram (1863 – 1924) at Rancho Camulos. Together they had one daughter, also named Ysabel. Cram was originally from Chicago but became a homesteader out in Fairmont. He became a prominent Antelope Valley merchant, with his first general merchandise store in the Fairmont area. He also planted 45-acres of some of the Antelope Valley’s first apple orchards. From 1904 to 1912, Charles owned and operated the Cram General Merchandise Store in Lancaster near the northwest corner of present-day Lancaster Boulevard and Sierra Highway. Charles and Ysabel lived on the second floor of the building with their daughter, just above the storefront. While in Lancaster, Charles strongly promoted the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct system by selling supplies to the project’s workers. Ysabel was heavily involved in the community, engaging in and leading several local events. She was often in charge of the women’s and children’s portion of the local famed rabbit drives. Unfortunately, the Cram General Merchandise Store burned down in the devastating fire of 1912. The family decided against reopening and instead moved to Los Angeles to live with one of Ysabel’s sisters. Despite this move, they maintained close ties with the Antelope Valley and continued to visit regularly. It was on one such visit that Charles passed away at the Palmdale Inn in 1924. This 1912 photograph shows the Cram General Merchandise Store, the third building from the left, located behind the posing cowboys. "Gurba, Norma H. Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley. Arcadia, 2013. Photo courtesy of MOAH Collections"

Dr. Cyrus Felix Demsey (1839 – 1913) is infamously known for being the Antelope Valley’s only Civil War veteran who was held as a prisoner in the Andersonville Prison. He originally traveled to California in the 1850s. While in California, he developed an extensive interest in mining which was ultimately put on hold due to the outbreak of the Civil War. At the start of the war, Dr. Demsey was a member of the Pacific Coast Navy. Then, in 1862, he enlisted in an independent cavalry company known as the California Hundred. He then headed East, enlisting as a private in Company A, Second Massachusetts Cavalry, acting to defend the Union. During his service to this cavalry company, he was captured in battle and was transferred through a number of Confederate prisons. One of these prisons was Andersonville, which is notorious for having been the worst of the Civil War prisons. After the end of the war, Demsey settled in Illinois and began pursuing a career in the medical field. Upon receiving his credentials, he returned to California and established a practice in San Francisco. Demsey relocated in 1890, moving from San Francisco to his final home in Mojave. While living in Mojave, he tended to the workers of the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe Railroads and their families. His interest in mining was kindled and he purchased several local mining claims. In 1906 he became Mojave’s postmaster, continuing to work in this position until his death in 1913. His wife, Matilda Kern Demsey (1875 – 1940), had acted as his assistant and took over as postmistress after his death. Dr. Demsey is buried at the chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles, pictured here. "Gurba, Norma H. Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley. Arcadia, 2013. Photo courtesy of MOAH Collections"

Frances Roberts Hatton (1887 – 1971) was a famed silent-film actress. She was originally from Nebraska but ultimately came to California to pursue her acting career. She first became known through her role in the silent movie “Lovetime” in 1921, also going on to play roles in “At the Sign of the Jack O’Lantern” (1922) and “Java Head” (1923). Frances married Raymond Hatton, who was also an actor. Raymond appeared in over 500 films but was best known for his role as Rusty Joslin in the Three Mesquiteers series. The couple moved to Palmdale in 1963. While living in Palmdale, the Hattons enjoyed spending their time engaging with the community through local events. Just after celebrating their 63rd anniversary, Frances passed away at the Palmdale Hospital. Five days later, Raymond passed away at the couples’ home. "Gurba, Norma H. Legendary Locals of the Antelope Valley. Arcadia, 2013. Photo courtesy of MOAH Collections"