Saltillo Sarape

I have bought and sold many important weavings in my life but never thought I would find a classic period saltillo serape. This one was originally found in a thrift store and sold to me at the show in Santa Barbara last week by a very kind gentleman. 

They are beyond rare.

early painting vignette by James Walker

Woven sometime between 1750 and 1820, these extremely fine Mexican weavings were owned by native born Mexican aristocrats of Spanish birth and found tied behind their saddle when not being worn. They had a center strip for wearing it over your head like a poncho or it could be fashionably draped over a shoulder.

They are associated with the town of Saltillo in the northern Mexico state of Coahuila and woven by the Tlaxcalan indians.

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art website:

The Saltillo serapes of northern Mexico are among the most flamboyant textiles woven in North America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Long associated with use by horsemen—which accounts for their considerable size—they took on nationalist overtones after Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821. Horse culture and its accoutrements, from fine horse to fine serape, became distinctively and visibly Mexican, with Saltillo serapes being the epitome of the male fashion.

Incredibly thin, they were dyed with native indigo and cochineal, the latter found by crushing bugs that lived in the nopal cactus. 

These classics were all colored with natural dies, which included wood, Palo moralete and sacalascal.

The cochineal creates the brilliant red, which at one time was worth more than silver! 

The early weavings have a single concentric center diamond and it seems were mostly red and purple, with various shades of cochineal. 

Later you find white and red ones and the center medallions changed but it seems that the early gentlemen favored the red ones. After 1820 multiple center diamonds were introduced and in some cases, commercial dyes. They got thicker in many cases with plied warps.

The classic blankets like mine are quite rare and can usually only be found in museum collections like the Met and L. A. County. 

I will be showing this early textile at the Santa Fe Whitehawk Show in two weeks, hope that you can stop by and see it.

My friend Jim Jeter wrote this book on the topic back in the seventies and organized the first Museum exhibition.

My friends Leven Jester and Michael Caden took the pictures in the excellent book, long out of print.

Jim stopped by and told me that I had a wonderful early example.

Every one is different. I have studied all that I could and have yet to see one that is not stunningly beautiful.

It is estimated that they took at least two years to weave. 

My weaving is missing the right border although some of it is tucked under and sewn.

Apparently the only people now capable of repairing the missing inch and a half are in Turkey and the repair would supposedly cost me somewhere between 10 and 15k.

I think that I will be enjoying it as is. Might even keep this one! If I had to hazard a guess I would have to think that it came from an old Santa Barbara land grant family whose scion was perhaps uninterested in family history. Their loss.

What a treasure!

For more information on Saltillos I recommend watching Mark Winter's two saltillo videos on Youtube, art dealer diary. He has spent his life researching them and his love for them and his scholarship is inspiring.

He mentions in the video that the Spanish crown did not trust Spaniards born in the new world. Perhaps the feeling was mutual and part of the reason this beautiful garment was associated with independence and was worn by the native born with such pride.

Eva Cassidy

People be gone

I should be packing but I decided to waste a little time this morning and play around with an old photo. We don't get to take vacations much anymore so we are left with old memories. One of the greatest places we ever traveled to was southern Spain, way back in 2012.

Now this was before the Americans had moved in and had reclaimed Spain and Portugal, much to the chagrin of the natives. You always had a bunch of drunken Irishmen and the English debauching on the Costa Brava but you just didn't go there. Andalusia was still good, no anti tourist protests or water pistols although we did witness an anti banker communist protest once while in Madrid.

Anyway, as any photographer knows, one of the difficult things to do is to get a picture of any landmark that is not full of those pesky humans, of whatever nationality. Extremely hard to do. They really ruin your shot.

I took this picture in Granada, at the Alhambra.  Always loved the architectural form, but all those damn humans!

Well, lightroom has a new tool that does away with all that, removes their presence quicker than you can say Godzilla or Mothra. I started messing with it this morning and came up with this.

I was able to pull all the human forms out, in a manner of seconds, thanks to my new but mostly hated friend AI. I started with a larger crop that allowed me to get the cool water feature in the front.

I reduced the highlights on the building and sky and equalized the shadows below. Might brighten them back up a bit later.

But there was still this ugly metal staging on the right to deal with. And its reflection in the water. I brought the image into Photoshop and performed a few removal and cloning tasks, not perfect by any means but good enough for my purposes today.

Voila! I managed to depopulate my photo and come closer to capturing my original vision. Not a person in sight!  

Here is another shot of the Alhambra, teeming with people.

Presto, bye bye!

All gone. As people empty as the morning after. Nothing left but the coyotes and cockroaches. Had to go back and genocide a few pesky shadows in Photoshop. Now don't try this alone at home without supervision, kids. I look forward to messing with some other shots and ridding myself of all human presence.

Otis

John's heart diagram

 

My late brother painted this. I think it was a tool in his recovery. It hung in his kitchen. I took it apart and sent it to his ex wife and children.

I thought that I would share it with you.

Used to be a king...

7/11/25

Last week's trip to Pittsburgh and the ensuing days upon my return have been among the most traumatic of my life, for reasons that I will not publicly ever go into. I think losing my siblings, first Amie in 1983, then Buzz in 2017 and now John, has personally caused me the most pain I have ever felt in my life. 

I once read a psychotherapist who said that your relationships with your siblings were even more powerful than those you have with your parents, might be something to that. You spend more time with them when you are young, surely.

I cried for my lost brother every day last week, could not help it and both sleeping and keeping my mind focused was difficult.

I actually sought grief counseling this week and the experience was helpful to me. After two unanswered calls to Jewish Family Services, I sought the help of a woman I know who had a long career as a psychiatric nurse, the last ten years of her career in the jail system. She helped me to not only deal with my own grief and trauma but to better understand my late brother's particular malaise. I really appreciated her help and plan on returning for more help one day.

Pittsburgh was hot and muggy.

I awoke every day to a red dawn, which somehow was fitting.

My task was to send remembrances of my brother's life back to his ex wife and four children.

There was more stuff in the apartment then I could send so I found myself curating his life and editing it down to six large boxes; his boxing gloves, his best nikes, his diaries, his lovely collection of musical instruments.

I felt strangely at peace and comfortable in his apartment and spectral presence, considering. 

He was a scientist and mechanical engineer with patents, a fuel cell wizard. His bins and instruments were well organized, soldering irons and test equipment, microscopes and every conceivable tool one could imagine. Journals held scientific computations and calculations that I could not remotely begin to understand.

Although he would cocoon himself when he was in the depressive part of his emotional dyad, he seemed quite comfortable in his own space, the apartment was clean and the walls full of bright paintings and posters. 

I couldn't help notice the absence of a television, good for him.

I went through his book shelves repeatedly. He could program in any language known to man but it was evident that he also was taking time to learn other languages. He had taught himself Tagalog, Farsi and Spanish and wrote each in the most beautiful hand.

I have no idea how many other languages he had attempted to master but it was very impressive, especially looking at the lovely arabic looking scribe of the Farsi. Once again I was taken aback by my brother's genius.

On the third day I could take it no longer. I shut the door at noon and told my brother goodby and locked the door. I had done all I could do.

I got in the rent a car and drove south almost two hours, towards West Virginia.  

I tried to go to Falling Water but all the passes were sold out and went to another Frank Lloyd home instead, the nearby Kentuck Knob house built for the Hagen family between 1954 and 1956 and now owned by english Lord Palumbo.

It was forbidden to take pictures in the home but it was furnished with wonderful native American ollas, both zuni, acoma and zia as well as great baskets and Natzler pottery. 

Lord Palumbo has a great eye, right down my wheel house.

I walked around the forest near the home and caught my first real breath in days.

I was glad to have made the trip.

It was the usual upon my return. 

Some people were there for me in my sorrow, a few were noticeably absent.

Some just don't do tragedy well, I get it. Not easy and it is a lot to ask of somebody.

Thanks to those of you who stepped up.

Life goes on, as always...

Do you know what I mean?

Santa Barbara Antique Show and Whitehawk Show in Santa Fe

Join me next week at the Santa Barbara Antique Show, Earl Warren Showgrounds. 

The show runs Friday through Sunday. 

Friday 11am - 6pm • Saturday 11am - 6pm • Sunday 11am - 4pm

I can't afford a big booth in Santa Fe any longer but will do my best in a little one, it will be packed with treasures!

Tower of Song

Can't win for losing

 

Brooke Rollins, our Secretary of Agriculture, has a use for all of those scofflaws that we are about to toss off the Medicaid rolls.

They can go pick the crops on the farms that are going unpicked since we declared the present ICE war on illegal immigrants.

Now we tried this in the south a few years ago in Alabama.  

 .

I remember the video vividly. Might have been this one. A peanut farmer tried to hire white workers to pick his crops.

They barely lasted a day.

I hate to be a pessimist but I don't think this is going to work out real well.  We Americans aren't used to hard work, in fact we have gotten pretty soft. 

And I don't think people have a clear picture regarding just who is utilizing Medicaid at present. Here is a good article  from 2023 that can catch you up to date.

The majority of them are working, 92%, many at multiple jobs that don't provide health benefits.  

64% of those are working at least part time.

12% are caregiving, 10% not working due to illness or disability and 8% have retired or can't find work or for another reason. 

Clearly the great majority are working or trying to work. Now we are about to throw 12 million more Americans off the rolls for the crime of losing at this life game. Punish them for not making the grade, for not winning, for their ineptitude at snatching an ever shrinkening slice of America's pie. We like winners in this country, clearly.

But hey, the rest of them can always pick cotton.

If they get hungry enough.

*

It should be noted that most of the Medicaid cuts won't happen or apply until after the midterms. Very crafty.

"Blues Run The Game"

Peter Paul & Mary - Early Morning Rain (1966)

Another Time And Place

It was fun for me, anyway

 

My short brush with fame and dream of starting a second career as a radio deejay has crashed to the earth in a lonely thud.

I speak, of course, of my recent short stint on the Sirius Radio Beatles Channel.

Relegated to the forgotten radio time slots better known as ice station zebra, I believe that approximately three people on this planet earth heard my fab four presentation.

This total is comprised of yours truly, who drove down to the trailhead to listen in his car, for better reception, my best friend Dave, who thought I was a bit wordy and verbose and my ex cardiologist Neal, who thought I sounded good but was perhaps suspiciously high in cholesterol.

Oh ya, my sister Liz in Virginia tuned in too.

Oh well, I gave it my best shot, as they say. Maybe there is a soul in some far off region of the globe, perhaps a lone hiker carving a path through the reeds at Uluwatu with his earbuds in at two o'clock this morning, that will listen to my last broadcast and have some glorious epiphany, perhaps remember where he put his lost pair of readers?

And then I will be able to depart this mortal coil and realize that I made a difference somehow, in some mortal's life and all my hard work and toil will be worth it.

Wish you could have been there.

The Youngbloods - Darkness, Darkness

Avian soul visitors

I am not a huge believer in signs, so easy to get caught up in indulgent self deception. But that doesn't mean I am going to stop watching and listening. The night before last, the day I learned that my brother had passed, a screech owl came closer to my upper screen door than I have ever seen or heard.

Literally feet from my door.

This is not the bird, this is a similar one I captured years ago on the telephone wire late one night.

In any case, the other night's bird made an incredible racket, wanted to get our attention.

I was on the couch, Leslie got up and saw it and rescued our cat tiger, who was hiding under the bench.

Was my late brother giving me a signal?

Who knows?

But it was certainly a different experience and I have been around a lot of owls.

This morning I woke up to find that one of the two red tailed hawk babies was sitting on my railing on the upper deck.

Totally checking me out.

Never seen that before either.

Grabbed a funky picture through the screen with my cell phone.

John, if you are out there, please do visit and stay in touch.

Weather Report Suite

This is the first Grateful Dead show that I ever attended in California with my late brother John, my mother and two friends from New York, Gabe and Hank. The year was 1974, the place was the Cow Palace in Daly City.

He was very young at the time.

Wind and rain.

John Matthew Fisher

I got an early call today. My beautiful, brilliant, baby brother Johnny has passed away. We are awaiting a coroner's report but his life had been in a spiral. Flying to Pittsburgh soon to pick up his things and clean up his apartment.

My worst fears have been answered.

I come from a very bright family. He may have been the smartest of the bunch but had been dealt a very bad hand. I will miss him terribly.

More later.

Eva Cassidy - It Doesn't Matter Anymore

Toronto Trip

I flew in to Toronto for a family gathering Friday, returned yesterday. 

My niece's daughter was having a bat mitzvah and I thought that for the sake of familial and filial responsibilities I should attend. 

I hadn't been there since Buzz's funeral and that is eight years time early next month.

The trip gave me an opportunity to see two of my sisters that I rarely see and a bunch of other members of my family.

John is still missing in action, somewhere in Pennsylvania, hopefully alive and kicking.

His daughter showed up, with her wife.

I like Toronto, a multi-cultural city that works better than most.

I will spare you a lot of the details. 

Nobody cares about anyone else's family reunion, let's face it.

I won't show you mine if you won't show me yours.

Anyway, two days is sort of a whirlwind, I stayed out by the airport to save money and took public transportation in and out, a long city bus or train ride.

Unfortunately my att phone service conked out and I couldn't call an uber if I wanted to, no data signal.

Makes it awfully hard to function in today's world.

Took over three calls and two frustrating hours on hold before we finally got the no data roaming problem sorted out.

I met everybody at the temple the first day, my niece did fine with her reading but the rabbi's talk made me remember why I hated religion so much.

Love the tribe, just hate the bullshit. God loves the conquerors, smites the infidels, like wiping up ants with a wet paper towel at a picnic.

Afterwards we went to Chinatown and I treated my clan to roast pork and duck at one of my favorite haunts, King's Noodles. 

We walked around the Eglington area and Kensington Market and checked out the shops. 

An old Jewish guy grabbed us and led us into an ancient and decaying temple with a beautiful art deco Jewish decorated chandelier but wouldn't let me take a picture because it was shabbos and that would mean pressing a button on my phone, which is verboten.

And I had a weird epiphany. Except for my sister Barbara, four years older than me chronologically after her birthday earlier this month, I was possibly now the oldest person extant at the family gathering. 

I mean the entire bat mitzvah gathering, besides Justin's dad anyway, let's say it is a very small group.

So I am the old guy now. Just how in the hell did that happen?

Later that evening there was a party.

Those that know me know I am not comfortable in parties or crowds, not being a drinker and a person that enjoys compression.

I enjoy the company of strangers more but that is another story.

So this picture is of the celebrants having a great time at the party.

And this one is me, trying to hide in the next room, actually pretty successfully. before I was finally caught and rousted.

I talked for a bit with an older woman who was a little drunk and then exited as early as I could, not wanting to be a total buzzkill.

Unfortunately I went to the wrong train station and then had a nightmare getting back to the airport and then couldn't get a shuttle for what seemed like a planes, trains and automobiles' eternity.

But I did.

I lounged around in my hotel room the next day, my sisters both shipped out back from whence they came. 

Great hotel, the Westin, great breakfasts too.

I thought about leaving early but did not.

Took a swim in the cool pool, Toronto being insufferably hot this week, much hotter than California.

I didn't bring a camera but took some architectural shots of the interesting building with my phone, at least I thought the shapes were interesting.

I was all set to call the weekend a day and lay in bed and watch movies until it was all over when I got a call from my wonderful niece Rachel, asking me if I wanted to have a last dinner with them?

Why not? 

I re-bused into the city, she picked me up off of Dufferin and we ordered excellent pizza, which we ate with her wonderful Calabresian neighbors. Zach showed up, his sweetheart completed a triathlon that day and he had been up since four in support.

I had a very nice time and then ubered back.

Next morning I met my sister in law at the terminal, she is coincidentally coming here on a business project, training medical staff. Customs hassled her, why couldn't she get an American to do the job? Unbelievable to me how we are treating Canada.

I had a huge observant Jewish guy sitting next to me on the plane, or sprawled sleeping next to me. Kippah, talis, whole bit. His body dwarfed mine and I am a big guy, he ended up taking about a third of my leg room.

I thought about waking him up and having a heart to heart about boundaries but didn't want to cause an international incident.

He finally woke up and he turned out to be a nice guy. Showed my a picture of his rabbi, like an Indian devotee showing off their guru. Schneerson, a chabadnik. He told me he kept kosher and was worried about finding proper food.

It was his first time in California, he was a sales rep. Never saw a palm tree before, I told him that it might be time for a ham sandwich too, but he demurred.

As we were leaving he asked me if I wanted to put tefillin on and pray and I gracefully declined. I guess we were now even. He told me that it was his duty to ask.

After another interminable wait, I got picked up but the folks from the Laurel St. Parking garage where I had left my car.

If you ever consider using them, don't. My car was on the roof, a six floor walk up. They told me it would be fixed Monday, it wasn't. In fact, one guy said it had been years. Walls are crumbling, trash in the stairwell. When I asked about it, the guy said, "We rent the building, we don't own it." I guess the elevators were never maintained. 

Place is a wreck, go to Aladdin or Wally, don't make my mistake, whatever you do, for your own good.

Good to be home. 

I barbecued a New York from the new subprimal I bought before I left. 

Made my first chimichurri, Leslie said I was a little heavy on the red wine vinegar. 

Going to buy more parsley and try to balance it out. 

Not far from really good, steak was wonderful, would make an Argentinian blush.

My first Beatle's taping aired last night at three in the morning. I slept through it. Anybody else hear it by chance?

Distractions

YouTube viewership is now besting regular television and as of last February, more people are accessing the service on wide screens than on mobile devices.

I know I use it much more than movies or television. There is something wonderfully populist and democratic about the medium. 

You can watch pretty young girls in southeast Asia catch fish, primitive families in remote Pakistan raising sheep in stark canyons, all sorts of things.

The last several years my favorites have been the polyglot Xiaoma, Ari Smith, Brad Owen playing poker, the Chess international master Eric Rosen among others.

Nowadays I am also watching Vegas Matt gamble with his cronies, Matt, or NDKayak, an angler from North Dakota who nails smallies and muskies from his kayak, Police Cam Chases, Karen videos, an occasional pimple pop and recipe and a new thing.

Hoof GP, an affable guy who trims cow hooves in Scotland, now has about 2.5 million regular viewers watching him fix cow feet. Not sure why but it is addictive. Very calming.

*

I watched a cool Netflix short today called The Quilters about lifers in a Level 5 maximum security prison in Missouri that sew quilts for autistic and foster children as part of the Restorative Justice Project. Very heartwarming and worth a watch.

Mujer Sentada

I was called in early to an estate last month and my eyes chanced upon an interesting wooden modernist sculpture. Hmmm, it looked very much like the work of the British artist Barbara Hepworth. I asked the owner what she knew about it and she said, "Well, I don't know if it is a Barbara Hepworth?" What if it is, I asked her? "Don't tell me," she said.

I bought it.

Bimorphic Theme - Barbara Hepworth

Barbara Hepworth is a very valuable artist, like Henry Moore, her work can run into the millions of dollars. I wish that I could say that this story has a happy ending but it doesn't, at least not yet.

I sent this letter to Hepworth's granddaughter, Dr. Sophie Bowness at the Tate, who administers her estate:

Dear Dr. Bowness,

I am an art dealer in California. I recently purchased a wood sculpture that I believe could very well be a work of your grandmother, Barbara Hepworth. I hope that you can help me determine if it is her work.

It stands 17" tall on the original wood block that is 8 x 9" square. 

The work is initialed with a conjoined BH on the upright portion of the base on the third picture on top as you see pictured below.

I was talking to an art historian I know who deals in latin art from this period and he said that Henry Moore was sending work to the Misrachi gallery in the 1930's and may have included some Hepworth pieces. This is a storied gallery, which opened in 1933. 

This is the earliest address for the gallery but this particular tag may have been used up until the 1950's. Unfortunately, the tag only reads Barbara with no last name. It appears that the gallery is no longer operational as I have tried to contact them to no avail and I had hoped to go through their records.

I would appreciate your opinion and letting me know if you have a record of this mujer sentada artwork in your files. It certainly looks right to me.

Sincerely,

Robert Sommers

Blue Heron Gallery

113 N. Main Ave.

Fallbrook, CA 92028

I also sent her a picture of this very similar Hepworth sculpture that my friend Peter found for me online. Identical head and neck. If it is a Hepworth it provides a good clue on approximate creation date.

I received this letter back:

Dear Robert Sommers

This work is not recorded in the very comprehensive catalogue that Hepworth herself compiled of her sculpture

The carving you sent separately is entitled Mother and Child (1934) and is in the collection of The Hepworth Wakefield

with best wishes

Sophie 

Dr Sophie Bowness

Hepworth Estate

Well, that was a dead end! I decided to try a different tack and contacted an art dealer I know that works in Mexico City. I asked him to try to locate the Misrachi archives. After all, it does have an inventory number, the label lists Barbara and the piece is initialed BH. 

My associate contacted a Misrachi grandson who told him that the records are lost or unavailable at this point.

*

So I am back to square one. So close and yet so far!

This conundrum may never sort itself out. I have been through committees twice before with John Singer Sargent, one successful, the other inconclusive. I have struck out with Dali and Warhol, with pieces that I knew to be correct and the work of the artist.

But the gatekeepers do not always feel it is in their best interest to open those doors again, they risk opprobrium and there is no personal gain for them to do so and and that is what people are most interested in, on either side of the equation.

So here I sit. I have to think or hope there could have been at least one occasion in her storied career where a piece slipped though and failed to reach the catalogue?

I know that it is neither here nor there but I believe in my heart that this is Hepworth's creation, aesthetically, constructively, labels, initials, all sorts of reasons.

I dangle this out to the world in the hopes that somewhere, in some deep vault in Mexico City or England, someone can shed more light on this beautiful sculpture. Hepworth or not, I can not let the matter rest. 

Any sleuths out there that can help shed light?