Desert Book - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

district"—the ancient city's famous art
colony. Bobbs' wife, the former Elspeth
Grant, is British and a graduate
of Oxford University in international
law. They have three young daughters,
and Elspeth runs a rare book shop in
one wing of the home. Under the
shingle, "The Book Specialist," she
locates hard-to-come-by editions, and
12
has one of the region's best collections
on the Southwest and Mexico.
Dealers in other cities sell some of
Bobbs' work, but he prefers to do his
marketing at home. The studio is
spacious enough to serve as a gallery.
Stirring scenes of Indian wars, peacepipe
ceremonies and tribal pow-wows
cover the walls and overflow into the
flOWBR OUTLOOK 1$ POOR
The rain gods have been less
than generous with much of the
desert Southwest this season—and
the result will be one of the poorest
wildflower displays in many years.
Practically no rain has fallen on the
Colorado desert of Southern California,
and the Mojave desert has
not fared much better. As this report
is written, early in February,
the season is so far advanced that
late rains will not radically change
the forecast.
Desert Magazine's correspondents
have sent in the following reports
covering their own vicinities:
Lucile Weight of Twentynine
Palms says annual flowers which
did start growing in December and
early January are stunted, and mild
weather forced premature budding.
In volcanic areas east of Twentynine
Palms, and along Highway 66
north and east of there, rock daisies
are vigorous and abundant and
should have a fairly good season.
Among the perennials which
should show some bloom through
March are pepper-grass, creosote,
rayless encelia and viguiera. The
incense-bush is in very good condition
in the southern Mojave area,
as are cactus species, Mrs. Weight
reports.
Bruce W. Black, park naturalist
at Joshua Tree National Monument,
says March may see these blossoms
along the Twentynine Palms to
Highway 60-70 road via Pinto Basin:
desert alyssum, blazing star,
coreopsis, verbena, mallow, desertstar,
gold-poppy, desert dandelion,
yellow cups and phacelia. By late
March, some Joshua trees may be
in bloom, Black said.
Jane Pinheiro of Quartz Hill,
Calif., reports that there is little
showing of green growth in the
western Mojave Desert, and prospects
for flowers in March are very
meager. Clyde E. Strickler, supervisor
of Anza-Borrego Desert State
Park, and Mrs. Mike Chalupnik of
Brawley, Calif., have much the same
story to tell for the lower Colorado
Desert. Strickler holds out hope
that March will see a few mallows,
ocotillo and chuparosa blooming in
Borrego Palm Canyon. The Coachella
Valley's March flower outlook
is dim.
From Death Valley comes word
from Monument Superintendent
Fred W. Binnewies that wildflower
prospects are poor. However, low
elevations in the valley may see
these blossoms in March: Mojave
aster, bottle-washer, ghost - flower,
phacelia, gilia, five-spot, sting bush,
brittle-bush, arrow-leaf and beavertail
cactus.
A. T. Bicknell, superintendent of
Casa Grande National Monument
near Coolidge, Ariz., does not expect
a good March flower showing.
Earl Jackson, National Park Service
naturalist stationed at Globe,
Ariz., predicts only sparse blooming
of winter annuals. If February and
March days are warm, Naturalist
George Olin of Saguaro National
Monument, Tucson, predicts ocotillo
and probably a few of the
early hedgehog cacti will send forth
blossoms in late March.
Merdith B. Ingham, naturalist at
Lake Mead National Recreation
Area, says dry winds and cold
weather have killed the few sprouts
that were up. It is possible, he adds,
that some beavertail cacti will be in
bloom at lower elevations toward
the end of March.
book shop and other rooms of the
house. An unfinished portrait often
occupies the studio easel.
Archery trophies dot the gallery
shelves. Bobbs has placed first in
bow-and-arrow tournaments in America
and abroad, and a few of his bestloved
bows are on display, too. His
pride and joy is one with a 58-pound
pull, made by an accomplished Los
Alamos bowyer. Bobbs' yen for archery
is one reason for his interest in
Indians, especially those of the bow
and arrow era.
Bobbs paints in a regular meet-thepublic
business suit; he is always ready
to interrupt a landscape or portrait to
make a sale. "I'm not a messy artist,"
he says candidly. "I don't smear paint
on my clothes when I work, and I
don't wish to wear a spattered smock
to make people think I do."
This ties in pretty well with his
opinions on art and artists in general.
"So-called 'modern' art is a fraud,"
he says, "—an easy racket for a person
too lazy to work. It's popular because
it's still new enough to be different.
If you're in the woods and see
a stream, you think nothing of it; but
if you see a stream running uphill you'll
rush madly over to look at it."
Bobbs is an arch-conservative academician.
In England he spent many
hours with the works of old masters,
particularly portraitist John Singer
Sargent, and says he'll never equal
Sargent's technique. But Bobbs' portraits
have a quality all their own. His
"Taos Head," has been lauded by
critics.
With such a fervor for conservatism,
Bobbs neither exhibits nor sells at
museums—which he thinks have generally
gone overboard for the modernists.
"At museums the real artist has
to compete with all sorts of gewgaws
and products of the untrained mind,"
he says. "This I refuse to do."—END
COCKFIGHTING IS LEGAL
RULES NEW MEXICO COURT
Santa Fe—The State Supreme Court
ruled that New Mexico's law providing
penalties for cruelty to animals does
not apply to cockfighting which, the
Court said, many believe to be "an
honorable sport mellowed (by) time
... to become an established tradition
not unlike calf roping, steer riding,
bulldogging and bronco busting." To
construe that the cruelty to animals
statute was intended to include cockfighting
"would open up many other
activities to prosecution though they
are not within its spirit—for example:
using live minnows to bait hooks,"
the Court added.
DESERT MAGAZINE