Elva'sArt

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Elva Spikes was a skilled painter. From what I understand, she was an untrained artist and was great at capturing the essence of a scene. I especially like Rail Fence and the push and pull of the foreground and background along with the color choice for the distant mountain, painted in rich teal/turquoise. I have seen things look exactly this way, to my eye, while traveling through eastern Oregon. The vividness of the landscape background is detailed and dark in value, rather than faded and disappearing. It seems flat in its richness of palette, but a winding fence gives depth and an entrance into the view of distant wide-open space. 

The descriptor "primitive" comes to mind when viewing Rail Fence and Elva's other works, but if you spend time with her smaller square 4'' x 4'' canvases you can see a certain spark that challenges this. These appear to be done quickly and are painted with only a palette knife (and apparently a magnifying glass). Each scene is a an expressionistic moment in fine minute detail. They remain painterly at such a limited scale and color choices are decisive, applied without second guessing. The seascapes are full of movement, alive and churning, despite minimal application, and can somehow fill a wall with energy while occupying a modest and restricted square. 

-David 

I have constructed this page, not only because Elva Spikes was a relative of Joanne, but also because I've had the pleasure of knowing Mike and Kristy Spikes for a number of years now. Elva Spikes was Mike's grandmother, and Mike, a talented artist himself, had expressed the desire to catalog her art and put it online at some point, years ago. In the process of building this site, and Joanne's Art section, I only thought it fitting to make use of all the photographs I had taken of Elva's artwork a number of years ago. 

I would be remiss if I did not mention staying with Mike (Elva’s grandson) and his wife Kristy Spikes, to view the solar eclipse in 2017...more coming about that excursion soon...

Updated (4.11.2020) - Solar Eclipse Memories

My wife and I planned one of our yearly trips out west, when my mother-in-law still resided in Coos Bay, Oregon, to coincide with the solar eclipse event of 2017. Although we had driven cross-country four times previously, that year, we decided on the expedient travel of flying. My stepmother, Tina, made the trip with us that year and it was her first time visiting the great state of Oregon. It's exciting to share in someone's experience of seeing things for the first time, such as the Redwood Forest, or any of the other great things we saw, as we made our way up the coast after landing in San Francisco. Once we made it to Joanne's place, my stepmother, myself, and my son set off on another excursion to see the total solar eclipse, and headed three hours north to Corvallis, Oregon.

If you know anything about Oregon, it should possibly be about the Willamette Valley, in which the town of Corvallis finds itself situated. It is a city with a population around 60,000 and home is to the University of Oregon. But the thing that makes it great, to me, is the location right in the heart of the Willamette Valley. My understanding of this area is that it was filled some 13,000 years ago by massive ice-age floods originating in the Lake Missoula, Montana area, thus packing some 400 feet, in some areas, of fertile soil between the ranges on either side of the 150-mile long valley. The climate is quite unlike the gloomy and unpredictable weather I am accustomed to in Northeast Ohio, and is a welcome and novel experience, with rarely a severe storm and temperate fluctuations of much more predictable weather. Although Joanne did not live in the Willamette Valley, she was nearby with similarly temperate weather. I always joked that the days throughout her springs and summers were like the movie Groundhog Day. Anyway, this different weather behavior was always alluring comparatively, and makes for a longer growing season in the Willamette Valley. Finally, it is no wonder that you will find some of the largest and happiest iris growing, in this very region, on several huge well-known farms. The land and it's people seem ideal, as an outsider, to both health and overall way of life. I digress. 

The three of us, continuing our adventure, were lucky enough to be able to stay with Joanne’s cousin Mike Spikes and his wife Kristy Spikes, whom just happened to live within the small “path of totality” in a region that is optimal for viewing an eclipse - predictable clear skies and all. (I'd be willing to bet the next total eclipse path, which will cross, just to the west of here in Ohio during 2024, will be obscured by clouds. It may even be snowing on April, 8th 2024!) Mike and Kristy graciously let us all stay at their place during a major home renovation with a fully gutted kitchen striped down to the studs. We didn’t mind one bit and their hospitality was indicative of the wonderful people they are. To add to the fortuitousness of our trip, they happened to be friends with a retired optometrist/amateur astronomer that was hosting a viewing party at his home. So, naturally, we crashed the party. This was no typical home or viewing party, much to our delight.

The amateur astronomer, whose name escapes me (help me out Mike or Kristy), had actually built a makeshift observatory out of his barn silo. His barn was filled with equipment and astronomy wonders, and plenty of kittens - my son loved it. A group of fifty or more congregated on his property as we eagerly awaited the onset of the eclipse. 

To see a partial eclipse is one thing, but to experience the full blockage of the sun during full midday light, with absolutely clear skies, is another. The sheer weirdness of the light which is cast on the surrounding landscape is eerie and haunting. Everything has a golden-tan cast which evokes a disquieting feeling. I can see why these events would trigger ancient civilizations’ fascination with tracking them – it still seemed ominous, despite having an informed scientific understanding of what was occurring. It’s a strange experience either way. 

[That last bit is a somewhat of a misstatement or misconception. Those ancient civilizations, surely, had an understanding that was vast - probably better than a good portion of us today. I've stood in the nooks and crannies of what is left of stone structures of the observatory ruins at Chichen Itza, in the Yucatán, Mexico. The Maya were not oblivous, in any way, to the structure of the heavens and what was causing such events. Neither were other ancient civilizations. I'm fairly certain that the grasp of planetary motions or a heliocentric model wasn't just to be first understood by Copernicus, Kepler, or Brahe, ...Galeleo or Descartes. Eh, what do I know? I had to look up the name Tycho Brahe, because I couldn't remember. How could I forget that? I mean, it's HIS name that's referenced, as the name of the crater on the moon, in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the alien monolith is buried! Anyhow, I'm not minimizing those great minds, just the hubris that is the Western Mind, largely solidified by these guys.]    

Back from the moon craters...The amateur astronomer and several others took delight in pointing out some strange things that occur visually during a total solar eclipse, such as crescents forming in the shadows of objects on the ground. An apple or pear tree cast many shadows onto the ground where each space illuminated by the sun, between the shadows of leaves, became a sparkling crescent; a shimmering carpet of thousands of crescents lay dancing in the shadows of that tree. We saw many of the rare phenomenon you can see during an eclipse and were lucky to have them pointed out to us. 

As a drone or two buzzed around overhead, capturing the event, the moon overtook the sun, creating a bright glowing ring called the “diamond ring effect” for a few brief moments at the beginning and end of totality. The corona of the sun flickered and radiated, moving above us – pretty awesome effect. The icing on the cake was seeing solar snakes! This is a very rare event and we saw the “snake” patterns shimmer and dance on the entire wall side of the astronomy-barn. It was quite a spectacle.

The astronomer had a wonderful property and a sizable rose garden to boot, and was kind enough to let me gather some rhizomes of a few Japanese iris I spotted growing on his property. They made the trip back home quite well. They have also given me numerous seed from breeding with other Japanese iris, already a part of my stock. Having never seen it before, since it was not in bloom when I dug the rhizomes, it was a real delight when it blossomed here in 2019. The super bright-white flower stood tall in my front yard, above most other things in bloom, and it brought me back to that wonderful day when we witnessed the eclipse. It’s pristine white falls (the drooping petals) tinged with a golden-yellow wash emanating from the center was rather “solar” in effect. That color scheme brought back a cascade of great memories from that day. If my crosses with it yield any worthy results I plan to give fitting names to the progeny, to recall the solar event back in 2017. 

-David

A small gallery of paintings done by Mike Spikes (Joanne’s cousin) is below. Mike is also an artist and was good friends with Joanne and her late husband Dr. John R. White. At some point in their friendships artwork was shared. My wife inherited some of Mike's artwork when her father passed in 2009, leaving behind a sizable art collection. Mike was also the owner of American Toy company LLC, for a nearly three decades (?), and has fabricated many wooden toys like catapults and marble shooters before recently retiring. I still remember my father-in-law’s excitement at getting a catapult and other finely crafted wooden toys, for my son at Christmas, that were made by his good friend. 

I would share a few photos of Mike’s fantastic wooden toys, but they are tucked away in one of the mountains of boxes we have in storage or the attic. My son loved that catapult!