Readers Determine Art

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS special fine arts editions are not generally immediate "sell-outs." The selection of artists for this special edition was made on the basis of "sell-out" records. Only six artists qualified on all counts Nicolai Fechin, John Hilton, R. Brownell McGrew, Larry Toschick, Ross Santee and Ted De Grazia. Since his first exposure in the early 1940's, De Grazia's art has made more friends and sold more copies of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS than all other artists combined. The artist's favorite painting, below, is also one of the favorites for UNICEF the United Nation's Children's Fund.

FOLLOWING 3 PANELS

Two of Arizona's most photographed and visited areas are the red rock country of Sedona-Oak Creek (pages 36-37 by Darwin Van Campen) and the ghost town of Jerome, once a thriving mining community located on the steep slopes of Mingus Mountain (pages 38-39 by David Muench). The once-in-a-lifetime exposure of lightning over the National Observatory's Kitt Peak (pages 40-41 by Gary Ladd) has been one of the most requested prints-for-framing by our readers.

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS has been a showcase for rainbow chasers who have honored us with their on-the-spot single, double, and triple classics of the heavenly arch. In selecting Darwin Van Campen's dramatic photograph we also pay graphic tribute to Arizona's breathtaking Mogollon Rim country.

Come rain, come shine ...the good life awaits at rainbows end.

FOLLOWING PANEL pages 44-45 Hundreds of photographs depict Arizona's range lands and the related cattle business, major factors in the ARIZONA HIGHWAYS story. The white Charolais now joins the white-faced brown Hereford, the red Santa Gertrudis, and the Black Angus in the leading livestock shows. CHARLES W. HERBERT

No commemorative edition can be complete without mention and tribute to our San Francisco Peaks symbol of Arizona's northland and one of the favored winter and summer recreational areas of the Southwest.

To ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Magazine, Larry Tos-chik is more than one of America's leading wildlife painters. Since 1953 his free-lance illustrated articles and superbly designed special editions have been high towers in the structure of our success.

Return of the Prodigal

The art and stories of Ross Santee were prominent features in ARIZONA HIGHWAYS throughout the 1940's and 50's. During the late 1930's he was Director, Federal Writers, W.P.A. for the State of Arizona. Many articles by W.P.A. writers appeared in the black and white editions of this magazine, enhanced by Ross Santee's art. In addition to illustrating his own books and articles, Santee's art illustrated many classics of the Old West such as "Powder River" by Struthers Burt. Santee was a master in the ink media and did very few illustrations using color. "Return of the Prodigal" first appeared in the January 1958 edition of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS.

When a census taker came to the old Cross S outfit, Dick Smith, one of the punchers, didn't know where he was born; it was either Texas or New Mexico, the family was constantly on the move. "Jes' put down 'wagon'," said Dick by way of helping the census taker with his tally. "That's where Ma tol' me it happened."

WATER COLOR AND STORY BY ROSS SANTEE Dick was a good cowboy. We rode through one roundup together. After the work he drifted and I never saw him again. In his mid-twenties, Dick had already made the big ride; he had punched cows in Canada, and broke horses in Old Mexico. Montana, Wyoming and Oregon had known his pony tracks. Affable, with a quick smile, the little blue-eyed waddie was easy to be around. Occasionally we were on day herd together; that I was forever sketching, making drawings interested the little cowboy. On this particular day I'd made a rough sketch of his pony. Dick liked it and asked me would I make a "pitture" of the little place where he had lived as a boy. "You'll have to describe it," I said; "mebbe it won't come off even then, but at least we'll give it a try." "Well, it was jes' across the Arizona line in New Mexico. An' it wasn't much but a shack, but after livin' in the wagon it shore looked big to me. Ma liked it too at first. She'd say how good is was not to be forever rasslin' the dutch oven and pots in an out of a wagon; then again she'd say somehow it didn't seem jes' right a'stayin' so long in one place." I sketched the little house, following Dick's description. "There was a door, an' the winder was here." He pointed with a finger. "Here's where the stovepipe come through the roof . . . An' would ya mind puttin' a little windmill on this end? Made it an' put it up m'self. There was a bob-wire fence right here," he sketched the fence with a finger. "There was a big flat, an' beyond the flat she broke off jes' like the shortchops does right here at the lower ranch." The drawing finished, "Anything else?" I asked. "Only one more thing make the winder a little more cockeyed." Dick slung his head and laughed, "Pa wasn't much of a carpenter. But that's it, an' that's the place . . . Ma always had a good garden below the house, things always growed for her. But things never growed on the big flat much fer Pa, he jes' wasn't no farmer, I reckon. He done good with the cattle, though; trouble was was we only had a few head. He was good with horses, too; so was brother Will. An' Pa was a good trader. He'd pick up a colt, make a good cow horse out of him, then peddle him to the big outfit that we was nestin' by. He broke horses at times fer that outfit on contract; broke 'em out at ten dollars a head; I reckon that's how we got beans. Pa could put a rein on a pony, an' he learned brother Will an' me." Dick studied the drawing. "That little bitty ol' whittle-de-dig, that windmill, how she would hum at times when the wind blowed an' it blowed most of the time. I'd hear it sometimes at night when I was half asleep. Ma liked to hear it too." Dick laughed again, "Pa made me grease it regular, but he was only joshin'. 'Richard, he'd say, 'now that all the livestock has watered out an' the tank is full you'd better put on the govener." "Wish brother Will could see the pitture. He was four years older'n me. We both left home when I was goin' on fourteen, but he was four years ahead of me. Even Ma said there was nothin' for us there. An' believe it or not I met up with brother Will in Wyoming after several years. Fancy meetin' up with him like that an' not knowin' where he was. We rode through one work together an' he was doin' good. He was runnin' a good sized bunch of cattle fer a feller on the shares. We talked a lot about the folks, the wagon days an' the little place. Fact is, we talked so much that after I left Will I went back to see the folks. Kinda lonesome, I guess. "They'd pulled up stakes an' gone an' been gone fer quite a spell. The fence was down an' the little house was about to fall apart. But that little ol' whittle-de-dig, that windmill I'd put up as a kid, it was still a-goin' strong. "I inquired around. The folks had sold the cattle to the big outfit an' that outfit had changed hands. The new foreman I talked with was ridin' an ol' pony Pa had broke, knowed him at first glance. No, they never left no word, I never learned where they went none of the folks in our family was any hand to write."

They come . . . people from all over the world . . . women in bright, flowing saris . . . men in turbans, caps, derbies, tyrol hats. They come from their sooty cities, or neat suburbs, or farms, or villages, or great estates. What they confront in the Petrified Forest National Park are time and space and harsh beauty. Some confront it uneasily. The 94,189 acres is part of the Painted Desert, a region of pale-tinted buttes and mesas rising up out of the desert in moonscape formations. The Spaniards named it Desierto Pintado. Colors change with the slant of the sunlight, the shifting of clouds, and the change of seasons. Hal Borland, editor of a collection of essays about man and nature called Our Natural World says, "The desert waits . . . All who live in the desert partake of its own dimension which is patience. Time lags, and this is still a land awaiting completion, not by man, but by time itself." Strewn over the face of the desert are the remains of a great forest which began 200 million years ago.

Evening

There are too many distractions for one to fully appreciate its loveliness when evening comes to city streets. Man, with his houses and buildings and telephone poles and electric lights, has succeeded in blotting out the sky, and busy as he is with his own little affairs he does not have time to pause and contemplate those quiet and serene moments that bring to close the busy day. Even canyon folks miss the beauty of evening. As the sun sets canyon shadows are laid all too abruptly for one to enjoy the delicate and gradual changes that take place in day's transformation into night.

Out on the lone prairie, on mesa or high plateau can the beholder fully appreciate the orchestration of the evening symphony and that best in the summertime when day lingers and the movements of earth and sky are slower and more majestic. The old sun takes his good time to call it quits for a day. The curtains are drawn with imperceptible slowness during summer, whereas in winter they are pulled with slam! bang! swiftness so that the end of day and the beginning of night are almost one. Evening should be a more leisurely affair. Hurry is for the day when the busybodies are about.

Evening is for the philosopher who pauses to consider the wisdom the departed day has brought. Evening is for the laborer from field, factory or mill resting from day's toil, content with the knowledge of work well done, proud of the fruits of that toil. Evening is for the worried, hurried and harassed who seek moments of relaxation from the incessant turmoil of daily living. Evening is for the aged, the elderly couple facing the evening of their lives unafraid, the years behind cherished memories, every moment one of endearing and lasting companionship, golden moments of felicity reflected in the fading golden light of a mellow sun.

At eventide creatures of the desert emerge from their hiding places where they have wisely spent the day to avoid the heat. Desert shadows grow longer until they all flow together and the grotesque shadows of the saguaro become one with the lacy shadows of the mesquite and palo verde. Day's fading light of yellow and orange turns to rose and red. Finally there is only deep purple high on the mountains and day is done. The moon, bright and big eyed, arrives on the scene. The stars appear one by one until finally the whole world is filled with moon dust and starlight and evening has gone and night has come.... R. C.

Of all people, desert people appreciate the mountains most. In summer, when the furnaces of the sun are blazing at their best (or worst), our mountains beckon with promises of cooling breeze, shaded forest, refreshing stream. We haven't the mountains to brag about as you find in some states, but the mountains we have are convenient and big enough to do a job of air conditioning. We make the most of them.

There isn't a place in the desert which is not nudged by a mountain range, some high, some low, but all offering a summer retreat in a few hours of travel. A flat country of interminable depth and width would be boring. You have to have hills and the mountains beyond the hills to give you variety. Mountains grapple with the storms of winter and protect the valleys below. The lazy clouds of summer are halted over mountain peaks and the rain therefrom is a tribute to the land. Mountains take the late afternoon sunlight and do tricks with it, straining the white flame through unraised fingers into color patterns of variegated hue. The blues and reds and purples of mountain light defy the most skillful fingers wielding the most artistic brush.

There is a spiritual quality about mountains, as any mountain climber will tell you. On a mountain peak, with the whole world below, one feels closer to God, as if there were sublimity in eminence. Maybe it comes from the feeling of being where few others have been because too few people climb mountains.

Mountains emphasize the passing of the seasons. Most of us know the mountains best in summer for then they are of easier access. Perhaps in summer mountains are at their best, when streams are running, flowers are in bloom and trees are peopled with birds, their song the song of summer. Whoever has not slept beside a mountain stream or has not heard the soft sound of a gentle wind in the pine trees has missed pleasures that cannot be found elsewhere. Whoever has not huddled around a camp fire on a high mountain, with the morning chill in the air and the air itself redolent with the aroma of bacon and eggs frying and coffee boiling is truly an unfortunate soul and greatly to be pitied. Life has been ungenerous and unkind to the one who has not enjoyed the clean forest smell after a summer rain, or felt the soft crunchiness of a needle-strewn mountain path under his feet, or heard the thunder roll down mountain chasms, or drank deep from a cold mountain spring. Mountain pleasures are simple pleasures....R. C.