Footprints of Pacifism - Lewis & Clark Digital Collections - Lewis ...

Grundtvig Folk School on Eagle Creek in the Columbia Gorge, close to Cascade Locks. He died in 1981.
Windsor Utley, in blue shirt and trousers, smoking a pipe, painted c. 1942 (see reproduction opposite). Born in
1920 and trained in music at UCLA, Utley made a number of paintings at Cascade Locks. Utley committed himself
full-time to art in 1947, painting mainly abstract impressionist inventions showing some kinship with those
of his friend Mark Tobey. A teacher in Seattle, he died in 1989. His correspondence with Tobey is archived at the
Smithsonian.
Bill Webb (born 1919) is shown against the background of a framed female nude and socialist slogans. This painting
was completed around 1948. Bill Webb contributed three items to the first (1943) issue of the journal edited
by Sheets and Nomland, The Illiterati, which was confiscated by the postal service. He also designed the set for the
satirical drama Stalingrad Stalemate in October 1942 and acted in the performance; he is seen lying on the bed in the
production photographs (case 1). He left camp and entered prison in May 1943. After release, Webb worked as a
textile designer and photographer.
The watercolor of one of the Columbia Gorge waterfalls close to the CPS camp is signed “Kemper Nomland June
1942.” See back cover of catalog.
Mark Schrock, director of the Cascade Locks camp, is standing beside his portrait by Kemper Nomland. This oil
painting, which hung in the camp library, was lost when the library burned.
Kemper Nomland at Cascade Locks camp holding his portrait of Kermit Sheets. This oil painting’s whereabouts is
currently unknown.
Kemper Nomland’s essay “The Metaphysical in Graphic Art” was published in Illiterati 2, Cascade Locks, Summer
1943. His ideas are captured by the following statement from the essay: “By branching into the realm of the abstract
one can convey a whole new expanse of ideas that is impossible in realism. Also it is possible for a number of moods
and ideas to be conveyed both simultaneously and consecutively.” Kemper’s experiments in abstraction are exemplified
in the three later pieces: a design made for Illiterati 5 (1948) and the two pastels, “The Concert” (1992) and “Anti-
War Rally 1969 Westlake Park” (1994), shown on the front cover.
Also exhibited: passages from Tom Polk Miller’s memoir War’s End, Portland, which was inspired by events in Portland
on the day of Kemper Nomland’s trial for refusal to obey a Selective Service order. A large part of his narrative was
drawn upon by William Stafford for the penultimate chapter of his 1947 memoir Down in My Heart.
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