Here's how Zane Grey put it: "The so-called civilization of man and his works shall perish from the earth, while the shifting sands, the red looming walls, the purple sage, and the towering monuments, the vast brooding range show no perceptible change."

Zane Grey wrote this into the guest register of the Wetherill-Colville Guest Ranch in Kayenta, Arizona, during his last visit to the fabled ranch in 1929. The Wetherill-Colville Guest Ranch hosted a Who's Who of great California Desert painters over the years. The story behind its famous guest register is told in Shadows on the Mesa by Gary Fillmore of the Blue Coyote Gallery in Cave Creek Arizona.

The Wetherill-Colville Guest Ranch was the best (and only) place for miles and miles around ... and it is historically significant because this is where so many great painters enjoyed congenial company while taking in the surrounding scenic treasures. Maynard Dixon, William Robinson Leigh, James Swinnerton, Carl Oscar Borg, Gunnar Widforss and many others swapped stories over camp dinners as they filled their days with sketching and painting trips.

And as they wrote about and painted this region, others came to behold it. Its scenery has become iconic American artistic expression and has often been used as a backdrop or metaphor for that part of the American story. This dynamic and dramatic landscape, massive in scope and colorful beyond description, possesses a distant horizon leaning toward a promising tomorrow.

One of the first to come to the California and Arizona deserts was New York cartoonist Jimmy Swinnerton. Jimmy had graduated art school in San Francisco along with classmate Maynard Dixon. As young artists, they both worked for William Randolph Hearst in San Francisco. Later, the vast body of each artists work would center on their lives in the desert.

Swinnerton was a successful cartoonist in New York, creating some of the first newspaper cartoon character strips. After contracting tuberculosis, Mr. Hearst sent Jimmy to Palm Springs to recuperate in the dry air. In the desert, Jimmy revived and thrived. He lived to be 99 years old and is known as one of the founding fathers of the American desert school.

Others followed. Some of the best known paintings of Canyon de Chelly were done by Edgar Payne. The horsemen on the sunlit patch of canyon floor give a reference point to the dramatically steep cliffs of red and blue rising high above them.

Conrad Buff is known for reducing landscape to sculptural design elements. He was a close friend and painting partner of Maynard Dixon, and their painting styles do show some similarities.

John W. Hilton came along as a young painter in the 1930's. He made the acquaintance of the older painters, Jimmy Swinnerton and Maynard Dixon, and deep friendships was born. Both masters taught young Hilton, often borrowing Hilton's desert expertise and energy in arranging painting and sketching expeditions. Today, Hilton is well known for his paintings, but also his expertise of the Mojave and Sonoran geography, its native cultures, its botany, zoology, geology. He was a frequent writing contributor to Desert Magazine and Arizona Highways Magazine and counted among his painting friends actor James Cagney and President Dwight Eisenhower.

Milford Zornes was a highly successful California Style watercolor painter, beginning back in the 1930's. He lived to be 100 years old and was one of the greatest teachers of the California Watercolor style. The painting below was done in 2001 when Zornes was 93 years old. Like a visual version of Beethoven composing the 9th Symphony, Milford Zornes created this painting while suffering macular degeneration. In spite of his visual limitations, Zornes insisted on continuing his painting and teaching. With enthusiasm, he taught his students from his long and storied experience. He emphasized "the story line" the horizontal, with "chapters" the vertical, as visual means of connecting with an audience from within a composition.

Canyon de Chelly and Monument Valley not only look great on canvas, but are also big winners on the big screen.

In 1939 John Ford filmed Stagecoach in Monument Valley, the first of many filming expeditions to the area. John Ford recognized the drama of this scenery and valued it as a backdrop for his stars. John Wayne was a large man and in a closeup easily filled a frame, but when closing in on John Wayne's face with Monument Valley behind, John Wayne loomed even larger and quickly became a monument in our cultural landscape.

The same tricks are at work among today's film makers. Below right, Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp appear as the masked man and Tonto in 2013's The Lone Ranger. This shot from below looking up at the actors sitting high in the saddle works especially well with the 700 foot vertical sandstone cliffs of Canyon de Chelly behind them.

We recommend trips to Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly for everyone. Stories, films, paintings and photographs just can't communicate it fully. We recommend traveling in the fall or spring avoiding summer heat, and to arrange for a Navajo guided 4 wheel drive tour of Canyon de Chelly. Looking at the Canyon from seven overlooks are wonderful, but being down in the Canyon looking up is an entirely different experience. It will excite your visual sense like few other landscapes can.

He felt that he had been a little stiff the first time. We did, and his expression was just what I had wanted -- serious, with a certain dignity, but relaxed and pleasant, not hard."

Norman Rockwell's session with Richard Nixon was more formal than his sesssion with Kennedy had been. Kennedy was at home, near his beloved Hyannis Port coast while Nixon was at the Capitol, his attention geared toward politics.

Here's what Rockwell said of the encounter with Vice President Nixon. "The Senate was in session. Mr. Nixon, as presiding officer, had to attend. I was told I could have forty-five minutes with him. A Secret Service man entered, then Mr. Nixon. In photographs he looks rather dark complexioned and grim. In person this impression is contradicted by his ruddy complexion and the grave animation of his face. Photographs were taken of Mr. Nixon and a Congressman for the latter's home-town newspaper. Mr. Nixon talked knowledgebly with the Congressman about his district. As I was posing him, Mr. Nixon remarked that he had a hard face to paint. I demurred. But while painting the portrait, I found it difficult to render my impression of him, for so much of his charm arises from his vigorous smile and his smooth, abrupt, warm manner."

Both portraits were published on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post the two weekends prior to the election. Both images were well received and give no hint of Rockwell's preference. But Kennedy's red hair and complexion seem less harsh than the contrasts of Nixon's darker hair and eyes. Unbeknownst to Rockwell and everyone else at the time, his portrait of Kennedy would be published twice. Just over three years later, the same portrait was used for the cover of the memorial issue of JFK, three weeks after the assassination.

The Walt Disney Family Museum
This museum tells Walt's story from the early days.
(on the Parade Grounds) 104 Montgomery Street,
The Presidio of San Francisco, CA 94129
-- view location on Google Maps --