1988 | Pat White and the Last Match, Borrego Buttes
Over the years, Pat White and I had found special quiet spots, centers of good hiking, color and views. This little canyon became a favorite, red rock skirted with soft green algae-dyed gravel from the bottom of prehistoric Lake Cahuilla. We claimed a secluded site and were provisioned with arguably the best carne asada in the county, so Pat worked in the wind to get our little hibachi going. There was quite a struggle, then he asked me where I kept the extra matches. Poor prior planning forced my answer of “Nowhere!” But the last one caught, and we had a satisfying closing of a long desert day, watching where the light goes.
During my last term in the fall of 2003, I taught a new seminar, “Why People Photograph”. On the first evening, we came up with a prime list of forty-seven answers to the lead question. The course would go on to explore its likely traces and richer veins.
Over the sixteen weeks, I had scheduled ten visitors to present their work and talk about their concerns as artists and as people. Pat, a forthright and productive man in several media, was to lead a class in November; I knew he would bring us a strong portfolio and outlook. Pat had reminded me that all of his ceramic works had been destroyed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake while he was preparing his final degree review at San Francisco State, so his coming talk would focus only on his photographs. As Pat’s class date approached, I checked in with him; he regretted to report that his photo archive, kept at his parents’ home for safekeeping, had been consumed just a few weeks prior, along with their house, in the horrific Cedar Fire. But he said that he had been working on a new series of drawings, and I was glad that we could pivot and add a mix to the media covered in the course.
Pat showed up right on time the next week, with only a handful of drawings, but a lot of resilience. The works he had set aside for his evening in class had just been ruined in a studio flood.
Official name of fire corrected July 2, 2020.
I am indebted to Robert Adams for his wonderful book, which provided the sensible title for my course.